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How I Got Radicalized
When Niurka Marcos Ruled the Spanish-Language Tabloids
Her messy beefs with ‘good girl’ celebrities proved no famous woman could escape scrutiny in the 2000s
Welcome to “How I Got Radicalized,” a new series at GEN that tells a story about a cultural moment — a TV show, commercial, character, song, book, musical, etc. — that made you drastically rethink how society works. Here’s how you can pitch us.
“Baby, let me tell you, the most mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had is with myself,” sneers Niurka Marcos from my television screen, gazing directly into the camera with smug self-satisfaction. It’s 2006. I’m 13, and my family just moved into our fifth apartment in the San Fernando Valley, only three blocks away from our last one. I’ve been following “la mujer escándalo” on gossip shows and magazines for years. I really never meant to get into that sort of thing. It’s just that Mami and I get home around the same time, and we like eating together on the couch with the TV on.
We’re a Univision household, and El Gordo y la Flaca comes on every weekday at 4 p.m. Mami rolls her eyes and scoffs, “mu-jer ri-dí-cu-la.” Must be a jab at her ex, she concludes, and clearly a lie because just the other day she was on some show gushing about their sex life, posing for calendars butt naked with him and whatnot. I pretend Niurka’s words didn’t send my head spinning. Niurka recently broke up with her hunk-of-a-man Bobby Larios, an actor she met on the set of Velo de Novia, a novela produced by her then-husband Juan Osorio. They say he found out about their affair on set during a make-out scene. The director yelled cut and the two actors kept kissing like no one was around.
Niurka Marcos, a curly-haired Cuban personality, ruled the Spanish-language tabloids in the 2000s. She was a showgirl, talk show host, and actress but was far better known for her outrageous public beefs with other Latina celebrities and tumultuous relationships with men. She was sharp-tongued, outlandish, and talked about sex more openly than anyone I had ever heard. Everything from her facial expressions to her flashy acrylic nails felt exaggerated to me.
