This is the multi-Grammy-winning Mexican music icon who rejected a transplant when he was suffering from liver cancer as he did not know if the donor was “homosexual or a drug addict”.
Retired singer Vicente Fernandez is under fire after making the controversial comments during an interview with journalist Gustavo Adolfo Infante.
Fernandez, 79, was diagnosed with liver cancer when on tour in Houston, Texas, in 2012 and he told Infante: “I did a world tour and when I was in Houston they found a ball in the middle of the two biliary vias and it was cancer. When I was told it was cancer, I cancelled the tour.”
He said that in the United States they found a compatible liver for a transplant in only two days, but he rejected it because he did not know the donor.
He said: “They wanted to put the liver of another cabron (lowlife) in me and I told them: ‘I am not going to sleep with my wife with the liver of another guy. I do not know if he is a homosexual or a drug addict.”
He says he decided to leave the hospital and did not see the oncologist because he did not want a liver transplant from an unknown donor.
He eventually had surgery in Chile, saying: “They told me about an operation with a robot. They operated on me, I didn’t even know and they put me to sleep.”
The singer, who has won three Grammy Awards, eight Latin Grammy Awards, was also diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2002 and won that battle too.
Fernandez is widely popular in Mexico for his ranchera music and his work in films.
Netizen ‘Rene Mendez Barrios’ commented: “What this interview reflects is his huge ignorance, it is incredible, it reflects sexism,, that is how things are done here with our artists and I think this man did not finish primary school.”
And ‘Roberto Delgadillo Aguirre’ said: “What stupid words! Pity that he is still an icon of Ranchera music for some. A poor elderly man who has always lived in a misogynist atmosphere”.
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Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
