The phone interview with Rocío Saiz was scheduled for noon, but when the time came, the number was not available. It is not something so strange, because unforeseen events can always happen: a traffic jam, a previous appointment that was extended, a child who got sick. But this one was much weirder because it involved an express change of hairdresser due to strange circumstances that included an allergy test out of context. The interviewee will recount the adventure in detail in the following conversation, preceded by some very quick but verbose audio messages that begin with: “Love” and end with: “Can I call you now in five minutes?” These few words are an example of her determined, close and natural character.
The reason for the conversation is the publication of his book Don’t let it show (Roca Editorial / Penguin), although with her CV, any excuse is good to ask her questions. Being a writer is just the latest of her many facets: singer, actress, television presenter and, currently, radio program contributor. You first with Marc Giró in RAC1 and Make it look like an accident on Radio 3.
Not bad for not being 35, although he notes that such activity is not reflected in the bank account. “In reality, I make little profit and I survive with three other things that have nothing to do with it,” he says. In addition, it is also receiving criticism because, as he says: “In this country, you are penalized for doing several things at the same time. But they have not given me anything and what I try is to be funny. That you come home and read this fucking book, which took me three years to make, and say: ‘what a painting, but what a laugh.'”
The book’s quality ratings will be better or worse, but what cannot be attributed to it is a lack of authenticity. Even if it has fictional parts, the author’s voice is present at all times. It is she who speaks even when the two invented protagonists enter the scene, whose dialogues merge with her monologue. Your reference is The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera because it was his first chosen reading and it had a profound impact on him. “I was left with the idea that love must be unforgettable, that coincidences must fly towards it from the first moment and there are six of them,” he recalls.
So, there are six chapters and its two characters have six things in common. The first is the gym where they go with the mistaken hope of improving their existence. An environment that Saiz totally rejects and that he used with the intention of demystifying it. “Enough of making the gym the place that will change our lives, because it is a totally horrible and expensive place that you always pay for and where you never go,” he says. “In addition, we talk about our intimacy to people who do not know us at all because we think they will judge us less. And in the end, they get to know you and judge you,” he adds. She calls this tendency to give opinions on the lives of others sincere, one of the terms that was designed to define behaviors. But there are many others, as well as strong phrases, because I wanted “a book of headlines.”
We talk about our intimacy to people who don’t know us at all because we think they will judge us less. And in the end they get to know us and judge us.
Rocio Saiz
— Artist
He sincere Saiz says that it’s when a person tells another person everything they think about them without it being relevant. Like a comment on your appearance or the decisions you’ve made. “These people who seem to die if they don’t tell you, they get cancer. They ask you, ‘Hey, can I tell you something?’ and if you say no, they tell you the same thing. You say, ‘No means no,’ and it hurts the person in front of you.” Another one of those headlines he had planned that would be used to make promotional T-shirts is: “Normal, there’s a program on my washing machine.” He laughs as he explains that people who define themselves as “normal” are very dangerous. “So that person is hysterical about schedules or cleanliness or is a tough guy. Every time someone says it’s normal, a cat dies and the bread rises. ‘Girl, tell me first what your abnormalities are and then you can show yourself,'” he says.
serious comedy
As a good actress, she uses humor to address the issues that are close to her heart because, as she herself says: “I am a true activist.” Her causes? The rights of the LGTBI+ collective and feminism, among others. In this way, she highlights in her texts certain aspects of reality that affect her closely and that perhaps do not receive the attention they deserve. One of them, also addressed by authors such as Carmen María Machado or Elisa Coll, is violence within a non-heterosexual couple. “We are going to make domestic violence visible in homosexual relationships. I do not want to take this and say that now we are at the same level of violence, but it exists and it must be verbalized,” she says. “You may have been born a lesbian and your father may have been violent and you may be violent. And since it is not talked about, it is becoming more and more normalized.”
I’m tired of seeing myself in relationships that hurt me and I stay. And this happens in heterosexual relationships, homosexual relationships, in polyamory and everywhere because human beings are wounded, we are already born with wounds.
Rocio Saiz
— Artist
Saiz is convinced that there is an addiction to pain and evil: “He thinks that this will ensure that the person in front of him stays in the relationship. I’m tired of seeing myself in relationships that hurt me and I stay. And this happens in heterosexual relationships, homosexual relationships, in polyamory and everywhere because human beings are wounded, we are already born with wounds. We don’t choose to be born, so we are born totally destroyed,” he says.
Her social networks were abuzz when she exposed the theory of the “circle of abuse”, which she also talks about in her book. On this occasion, the term is not hers but was explained to her by an acquaintance at a time when she was going through a very difficult time due to a romantic relationship. This concept is used to define a harmful relationship that never ends because the person who manages the situation disappears but always comes back, without remedy. The vulnerable person gives in, regroups and returns to square one by the same path. “You’re doing well, you’ve managed to rebuild your life and this person sends you the fucking message that he heard a song that reminds him of you. You believe it, you go back to him and then the story begins. honeymoon: I wish I had met you before, I want to marry you, you are the person of my life. And when you say that Before, he comes back ghost and like that, you can spend your whole life,” he explains.
You’re doing well, you’ve managed to rebuild your life and your ex sends you the fucking message that he heard a song that reminds him of you. You believe it, you come back and then the “honeymoon” begins. But when you say “stop”, the “ghost” comes back and you can spend your whole life
Rocio Saiz
— Artist
There is an episode in the history of Spain that obsesses him and that he also wanted to make visible. It is the Women’s Trust, a Francoist institution in which “deviant” women were locked up. Although there are already works like the podcast That Is Not Talked About by Isabel Cadenas Cañón, it is still not as well known as it should be if we take into account its seriousness. Saiz discovered what happened there during a conversation attended by the historian Álvaro Cid, who said that some were interned with a suitcase full of men’s clothes. “There were women who were not even lesbians, nor transsexuals, nor single mothers. “Someone simply didn’t like you or wanted to make your life miserable and put you on the board of directors,” he says. “What is not talked about does not exist and it was a concentration camp for women that we don’t know how long it lasted. I am not a student of historical memory, but through the general public “I can let people know that this existed, then I will have helped something.”
What happened in Murcia?
Saiz has had a musical career for many years, as the leader of Las Chillers and the singer of Monterrosa and alone, but many people knew her because of what happened to her at the LGTBIQ+ Pride in Murcia in 2023. There, she took off her shirt during her performance and left her breasts exposed, as she usually does in her concerts. At that moment, and to her surprise and that of the public, a local police officer stopped the concert and forced her to cover herself. After the altercation, the Murcia Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation against the officer who had forced her to cover herself, a process that continues to this day and that has led the singer to testify on several occasions. And he has yet to return.
“I can’t wait for this to be buried in the depths of the earth,” she says wearily. “Everyone tells me that my work will have been ruined after this, but quite the opposite. My fight has always been to be taken seriously and now I’m ‘the one with the boobs’, I’m fed up. But it’s moving very slowly, even if I take it as another experience, I never thought of going to the Superior Court of Justice,” he explains with a certain irony.
I hope that the Murcia issue will be buried deep in the earth. My fight has always been to be taken seriously and now I am “the one with the breasts”, I am fed up
Rocio Saiz
— Artist
At the moment, he’s not quite sure what to do with his music career. He’s got other things going on – the whole hair salon thing is tied to a new period drama he’s shooting that he can only say will be “great fun” – and his last concert tour has left a bitter taste in his mouth. “I’m kind of in it shock because there is a lot of abuse. We have taken away everything we had achieved in terms of gender perspective,” he says. Specifically, he says that in festivals, the relationships between all participants, from artists to the public, are increasingly deteriorating. “In general, in leisure spaces, we start to indulge ourselves regularly and we have to look at that,” he says.
