‘Mi Divo’ podcast host Maria Garcia examines her personal identification and trauma by means of Juan Gabriel’s tale

As a queer girl born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, journalist Maria Garcia usually felt drawn to Juan Gabriel.

“It feels like his legacy supplies me with the clues to determine out this rigidity inside of of me between these two identities,” Garcia explained of the legendary Mexican singer and songwriter. That tension is explored in “Mi Divo,” a new Apple Television set+ podcast hosted and govt manufactured by Garcia, in which she works by using Gabriel’s tale as a guiding light for her own particular reconciliation with generational loved ones trauma and her identity.

The 8-aspect sequence — Apple Television+’s very first twin-language podcast — premiered on Monday, with the 1st two episodes readily available for nonsubscribers. New episodes of “Mi Divo” are introduced weekly.

The podcast delves into Gabriel’s flamboyant personality, which ruffled versus the Mexican patriarchy and normally prompted media speculation around his sexuality. One particular example bundled in “Mi Divo” is Gabriel’s now-infamous 2002 job interview with “Primer Impacto” reporter Fernando del Rincón, who asks if the singer is gay.

“They say that what you see, you need to have not ask,” Gabriel responded curtly. Inspite of the continual probing, he hardly ever came out to the community. Garcia points out that he also hardly ever outright denied staying queer, and would generally obstacle the queries presented altogether.

“But Juan Gabriel onstage? Honey, that was queer exuberance,” Garcia stated.

At the peak of his occupation, el Divo de Juárez would don purple fringed fits, bright pink vests and silky satisfies.

“In its most potent, reliable, liberated way, Juan Gabriel onstage was truly free of charge,” she added.

The youngest of 10 youngsters, Gabriel — his real title was Alberto Aguilera Valadez — was born in Paracuaro, Michoacan. When he was a young little one, his mom moved the family members to Ciudad Juarez following her partner was interned at a psychiatric clinic. She would ultimately surrender Gabriel to a local orphanage.

In a 1999 profile with The Instances, Gabriel reported that his initially memory was of currently being deserted by his mom.

“You don’t know the word for ‘abandon’ at that age,” Gabriel told former Times reporter Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. “But you know what is going on. You know you want to be with your mother, and she is not there.”

Gabriel would harness his vocal reward and his capacity to distill thoughts core to the human situation into music that have stood the take a look at of time. Gabriel marketed extra than 100 million albums about his decades-extensive occupation, capturing the hearts of audiences on equally sides of the border and of all types of sexual orientation with tracks like “Así Fue,” “No Tengo Dinero” and “La Farsante.”

Even with his personalized heartbreak, Gabriel’s potential to really like shone via his music. Valdes-Rodriguez suggests it was his “poignancy that is at an intersection of love and pain” that differentiated “JuanGa” from the rest.

“When you believe about an individual elevated in an orphanage, abandoned, who rises to that stage, that is an extraordinary soul, right?” He extended that energy to absolutely everyone and anything about him,” claimed Valdes-Rodriguez. “He noticed the magnificence in forgotten locations and in the forgotten people today.”

Gabriel at some point reunited with his mother, shopping for her a residence shortly immediately after reaching fame. She served as the inspiration behind “Amor Eterno,” the mournful ballad that has since turn out to be a staple of funerals.

“I don’t assume he was in denial or unaware of what transpired to him,” said Valdes-Rodriguez. “It’s that he was in a position to forgive and like at a amount that most of us can only aspire to.”

Garcia says Gabriel’s capability to forgive his mom inspite of the abandonment assisted her cope with her own familial trauma. Like Gabriel, Garcia’s very own mother was deserted — she was forced to marry somebody she did not know and was subjected to sexual abuse. As the podcast reveals, Gabriel was also the target of these abuse.

“I observed the two the agony and the resilience and the magnificence of his therapeutic, and I noticed it in my mom. It was just a genuinely cathartic moment,” Garcia mentioned.

“Mi Divo” is meant to be a place of healing, Garcia says. By discovering the tragedies and triumphs surrounding the singer’s lifetime, she’s been able to obtain consolation, peace and a feeling of belonging. Her very own narrative is as central to the story as Gabriel’s. It’s a resourceful selection that was also taken in “Anything for Selena,” a podcast sequence that examines the cultural significance of slain Tejano legend Selena Quintanilla. “Anything for Selena” — developed as a result of Futuro Media and Boston’s National General public Radio affiliate, WBUR — was named Apple Podcasts’ show of the year in 2021.

Garcia states she determined to “show her cards” to the listener by getting aspect of the tale on each sequence.

“To not contain [my own narrative] is dishonesty from my aspect as a journalist to the audience,” Garcia stated. “I price radical transparency more than objectivity for the reason that objectivity doesn’t exist.”

And why aim on el Divo de Juárez this time all-around?” For the reason that listeners commenced clamoring for it.

“After I completed [‘Anything for Selena’], it felt like providence, it felt like the universe [was manifesting it], because there had been so several people on social media who begun messaging me, ‘So, is Juan Gabriel upcoming?’”