Avoid the spotlight, fame, red carpets and flashes. Now too, with a new life in “the house of retirees”, as he defined the apartment in which they both live in Tirso de Molina, Madrid. Jimena Coronado has been at Joaquín Sabina’s side for three decades. And it is he who, in the words of the artist from Úbeda, saved the artist’s life “more than once.” A guardian angel who, at times, had to be a de facto one, as in one of the most difficult moments of Joaquín Sabina’s life: the stroke he suffered in 2001. “Jime! Take me to the hospital! I can’t get up…”, the singer-songwriter shouted in those tragic moments.
But life continued “while things continue that don’t have much meaning” and between their central house in the capital and the one they have for the summer season in Rota, Cádiz, the years, love and occasional scares have followed one another, such as the sudden fall from the stage of the WiZink Center in 2020 and the subsequent operation for an intracranial hematoma. But, perhaps in silence, The Peruvian woman is the one who gradually changed reality to the author of songs like seven chrysanthemums either Melancholy street.
Sabina, thanks to her, decided to take care of herself to live longer with him. In a recent interview he gave to squire For his last concert, the poet also affirms that he cannot give “buts” to his wife: “I found another happiness that I had neither known nor appreciated, which is that of true love.” And this was transmitted in their marriage, which took place on June 29, 2020, civilly, in an intimate way and very close to home. And with an exceptional witness: his good friend Joan Manuel Serrat.
They met in 1994, in a hotel room. Sabina said that they both remember him perfectly. It was the Sheraton, in Lima, where she is from. It was not a romantic meeting, but a professional one, since Coronado was the newspaper’s photojournalist Trade and he went there to do a photo shoot to accompany a long interview on the occasion of the Andalusian’s new album, more touring: This mouth is mine. In fact, even if there was feeling almost instantaneous, even if both had a partner. They met at ten in the evening to have a drink in a bar in the evening. Joaquín arrived two or three hours late and sat elsewhere, without greeting her. She came by, he said her name and they talked for several hours, although nothing happened between them.
Only the years passed and the memory persisted. Love too. All you had to do was write or pick up the phone and Jimena wasn’t afraid. Since a writer they both loved had died, the excuse was valid. And his words still ring in the singer’s ears: “The relationship that kept you and me from being together is over.” As if the writer’s death had already served its purpose. Because it worked (Sabina had also broken up with her former partner, Argentine Paula Seminara) and they reconnected just as he was promoting what is perhaps his most famous album.
“He sent me a letter that took me four months to open because I was in the middle of 19 days and 500 nights“. Response from ‘Flaco’: “Rubia, see you soon in Venice.” There was no Italy, but there was Garibaldi Square in Mexico. They spent a few days there and, then, he composed the song for her Pink Lemon, the end of its chorus being in fact a plea: “Come, come, come with me…”. And it didn’t take long for Jimena to pack her bags and in a short time she was living in the apartment on Calle Relatores in Madrid. They never separated again.
“I’ve been with Jime for 30 years and she has a lot to do with my life change. It’s been a long time since I wanted to go anywhere where she’s not. And the fact that it’s not known and unsaid and it’s okay that it’s not known and unsaid was very important. I turned 50, I had a stroke and I started living with Jime until today,” Sabina says in what is an example of how Even the most beautiful love song doesn’t come close to living it.
Jimena, before Joaquín
Jimena Coronado did not have a complicated childhood, since she is the daughter of Pedro Coronado Labó, lawyer and prestigious university professor who was elected city councilor of Lima in the years 1980 and 1983. and, later, the president of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, Just as his mother is the visual artist Eida Merel who, out of curiosity, was at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in May 1968.
They both lived in one of the most famous neighborhoods of the Peruvian capital, the Miraflores neighborhood, and their good economic situation allowed the young woman to study first at the Franco-Peruvian high school in Lima and, later, at the Pontifical University of Peru. His profession was forged before meeting the Spaniard in New York, where he moved to study photography at the International Center of Photography. And a note: Joaquín Sabina was not the first musician with whom she had a relationship, since, as has since been claimed Vanity Fairshe previously dated Jorge Durand, drummer for the rock band Frágil.
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