15 years ago, Edu Galán (Oviedo, 46 years old) met Belén Esteban in an elevator. The writer, screenwriter and comedian was not yet known. She, on the other hand, was already “the people's princess.” Esteban assumed that he knew her from TV, so he began to speak to her with astonishing familiarity. On the five-story journey, he asked him about his family and his job. And he, who knew about the life and miracles of Jesulín's ex from the heart programs, did the same. "If you meet Belén in an elevator, there is no way to talk about the weather. You have to ask her about her life. That's fame, that's being famous," says Galán.
Around the same time, the writer launched the satirical magazine Mongolia. Then, he also started to become famous. After a decade and a half of popularity, he publishes More famous than Jesus Christ (Debate), an essay on fame from Ancient Greece to Survivors. “I wrote it to help my famous friends not have such a bad time and to help myself sell my image without believing that that image is entirely me,” he says during a conversation in the Palm Court of the Ritz hotel, an elegant amusement park for all those who want to see and be seen.
Ask. You are famous, but your wife is more famous [he is married and has a daughter with presenter Marta Flich]. How do you handle that?
Answer. Fame came to me late and that gives you psychological tools to cope with it. Something similar happened to Marta. Those of us who become famous later handle it better.
Q. Have you and Marta been offered money for a pose or exclusive?
A. No. A shame because we could have considered it [laughs]. The concept of exclusive is dying and it makes me sad. I liked the exclusives on Hello! and I am very fond of glamour. Before, magazine editors were the intermediaries between celebrities and the public. Now, editors have been replaced by social media and algorithms. The magazine editors had a little eye, taste and judgment, but the algorithm has nothing. The technology billionaires deserve a Nuremberg trial for having killed glamour.
Q. Glamor is no longer fashionable. Now what is important is authenticity.
A. That authenticity you speak of is completely artificial. There is nothing less authentic than the grotesque spectacle that we see on the networks. Influencers are pure artifice because they are not going to tell you what we would want to know about them. The Pombos can't be glamorous because they are posh from Santander. Believing that Pombos are glamorous is like believing that McDonald's is haute cuisine. The culmination of all this artifice is one of the most watched shows of the last decade: the Ibai Llanos fights, the streamer fights. The evening of the year is an individualistic artifice with a fascist and Trumpist whiff of glorification of the physique, violence and the worst masculinity. It's anti-intellectual crap.
Q. What do you think of the supposed fall of influencers?
A. Influencers have not fallen by any means. It is absolutely false. They're just readjusting their apparent authenticity, that's all. They are pigeons forced by the click and the algorithm and they will look for new strategies to stay there. Four or five of them will lead the way for the rest, who I call slave influencers, who are 99% of network users. That of influencers is a disastrous profession: there are no regulations or laws, there are no labor rights and on top of that they believe that they are united to the community when they are more isolated than anyone else. This new fame has traces of a thousand things and we are eating it every day without knowing what it is made of.
Q. You say you wrote this essay to help your famous friends not suffer. Why do famous people suffer?
A. They really want no one to see them and, at the same time, because of their work they have a tremendous need to be seen. This creates tensions that lead to many fears, anxieties, depressions and addictions. Today, more than ever, anyone can have the 15 minutes of fame that Warhol spoke of, but almost no one has the psychological tools necessary to face that exposure. I also wrote this essay so that parents stop using their children to be famous.
Q. Look at the case of Ana Obregón.
R. Ana's case worries me very much. I'm worried about how she's trading with her granddaughter, but she, at least, knows the fame industry well. Many things can be said about her, but it is true that she knows the tempos and how to advertise herself. She has know-how that she can transfer to her granddaughter and that can be psychologically beneficial to the girl. I'm more worried about YouTube parents who become famous by unboxing or dancing with their kids and who know nothing about fame. Those parents and those children confuse true intimacy with true intimacy, with intimacy built to teach it.
Q. In Ancient Greece and the Middle Ages there was no distinction between public and private life. Have we returned to Antiquity because of the networks?
A. It is no longer clear what is public and what is private. The objective of this essay is to learn to distinguish it. If you want to turn your life into a Broadway musical, you have to know how to do it. If you go out on the Broadway stage and you don't know how it's done, you're going to have problems.
Q. I have the impression that women are still required to be pretty, thin and young to be famous, which is not the case with men. Is fame still sexist?
A. Fame has a sexist side, but the problem with fame, above all, is that it demands a lot and from women, as always, it demands more.
Q. Let's talk about fame and old age. In Spain do we treat our famous old people badly?
A. In Spain there are bleeding cases. There are greats on the scene like Marisa Medina, Gracita Morales and Tony Leblanc who we have treated as freaks or grotesque creatures. Bárbara Rey is another example. We have a very serious problem with older actresses. They are put aside in a corner and this has to do with the glorification of youth in which we are immersed. The consumer society calls for constant reinvention. If you want to maintain your fame, you have to sell a piece of your private life. Otherwise, you disappear. For me, Charo López is still just as talented, but since she doesn't sell her private life, we don't see it.
Q. It is no longer necessary to do important things to be famous.
A. Selling your life is also a talent. A successful theater career requires a lot of work and going to Women and Men and Vice Versa or First Dates seems easier, but it's just as hard.
Q. Who were you a fan of when you were little?
A. He was very old. At two years old he was already old. It had posters of The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Stephen King... It was old school. Perhaps because of my love for glamour, for the unattainable, I was already looking at older people. My mother was a perfumer, she had a beautiful store in Oviedo and sold luxury. That greatly influenced my certain disdain for the famous people of my generation and my love for the great actors and actresses of old Hollywood.
Q. In the book you say that you hate some famous people. Give me names.
A. I loved Boy George very much and I am already touched by his opinions on Israel. I was also a big fan of Bill Maher and the same thing happens to me. It has aged poorly. Real hate? When I was young I hated Raphael. I'm sure he's a great guy, but I've never liked his art. Now, over the years, I understand that he is a multifaceted artist. But as a young person you have to hate, you have to kill people to make room for others. He hated the light music of Francisco and Camilo Sesto. Now I have reconciled with them. And all my life I have hated the Ana Obregón backfire.
Q. And Preysler?
A. I was fond of him for a certain time because he had a certain amount of glamour, but he has completely lost it. From the moment Isabel Preysler appeared on MasterChef with Mario Vargas Llosa, the glamor in Spain ended.
Q. Which famous person would you have a beer with?
A. With Javier Bardem, whom I admire a lot. And with Fernando Alonso, whom I don't admire at all. I'm not interested in anything and Formula 1 disgusts me, but I would have a beer with him to understand his enigma.
Q. Who is the most famous person in the world?
R. Trump, unfortunately. It's what he wanted. When he entered Graceland, he said, “Elvis was the most famous man in the world, but there is already someone more famous.” And he was right. It's a total tragedy.
Q. Tell me what is the best and worst thing about fame.
