68-year-old star has a baby by surrogacy... with her late son!

An international controversy has unfolded surrounding the Spanish actress and TV host Ana Obregón, who became a mother at the age of 68 thanks to a surrogacy process.

The news was known after the exclusive of the magazine '¡HOLA!' that showed on its cover the first images of the artist leaving a Miami hospital with the little girl in her arms.

Image: ¡HOLA!

The birth of her second child came three years after the death of her son Aless. He died in May 2020 of hematological cancer at the age of 27.

After days of rumors about the alleged father of the baby, the Spanish star revealed to '¡HOLA!' magazine that the girl was conceived with the defrosted semen of her late son. This means she is not the mother of the baby, but the grandmother.

As she related to the Spanish magazine, the birth of this child was the fulfillment of the last wish of her son Aless Lequio before he died of cancer.

The star named her child Ana Sandra Lequio Obregón: a name that, apparently, the late Aless told his mother that his first daughter should bear. 'Sandra' is a feminine variant of Alejandro, her father's name, and Ana is the name of her maternal grandmother and her great-grandmother (who died in 2021 at the age of 95).

Posting the image of her little Ana Sandra on Instagram, the presenter and actress dedicated these words to her first child, her deceased son:
"My Aless, I swore I would save you from cancer and I failed you. [But] I promised you I would bring your daughter into the world and here she is in my arms."

"When I hug her," the actress says, "I feel an indescribable emotion, because it's as if I were hugging you again."

"I swear I will take care of her with the infinite love I have to give, and you, from heaven, will help me," Obregón wrote to her son. "You are the love of my life in heaven, and your daughter, the love of my life on earth."

As reported in ¡HOLA! and confirmed in 'El Mundo,' the baby was born on March 20. In the days before the delivery, Ana Obregón was said to have rented an apartment in Miami "to spend the first days of the little girl's life there."

On March 22, the famous TV host left the hospital with the little girl in her arms. She sat in a wheelchair, following the protocol and regulations of the health center.

As the star would later claim on Instagram, next to the photo the paparazzi made: "They caught us! A light full of love came into my darkness. I will never be alone again."

The surrogacy and delivery of the baby took place at the utmost discretion. Only the sisters of the star and her ex-partner (and now grandfather of the baby), Alessandro Lequio, knew of her plans.

Image: Ana Obregón later assured her followers on Instagram that no one had leaked the news to the press.

As her sister, Celia told El Mundo, "Ana is fine, very happy." She also added that the family is still "in shock" after the news of the new baby's arrival in the world.

The Spanish TV host should spend a few weeks in Florida with the newborn before returning to her country. As CNN reports, the child will have a US passport, but "she will be registered at the Spanish consulate in Miami before flying home to Spain."

The TV host plans to return to television very soon, with 'Mask Singer' (the local version of 'The Masked Singer') being one of her latest projects. She has served as a judge on the successful show.

Image: Antena 3

In addition, Ana Obregón continues with other professional projects such as the Aless Lequio Foundation, which raises funds for the fight against cancer, and the publication of a book, 'El chico de las musarañas' ('The Boy with the Shrews'), a work left half-finished by her son.

"In this work," the star writes to her son on Instagram, "I explain the whole hurricane of feelings of a mother faced with the loss of a child and the long road to reach this blessing and miracle of a baby, Anita, who is your daughter."

Ana Obregón's family expansion has become the focus of heated debates in Spanish media. They question her maternity at the age of 68, her use of surrogacy, and her relationship with the media.

In Spain, surrogacy is prohibited, CNN states, while other nations, like the UK, only allow it with many restrictions. Meanwhile, in Mexico or the US, the process is "straightforward" - as long as you can afford it. The Spanish newspaper 'El País' points out that an increasing number of wealthy people go abroad to find a woman who is willing to carry their baby to term for them. It calls surrogacy "parenthood as a global industry."

As CNN reports, Spanish media have gone as far as to track down the surrogate mother of Obregón's baby. Letras magazine established she was "a woman of Cuban origin that lives in Florida – and splashed photos of her on its front page," per CNN.

CNN also notes that Verónica Fumanal, president of Spain's Association of Political Communication (ACOP) was very critical of the entire situation. She said "the announcement made her think of the dystopian TV series 'Black Mirror.'"

"She bought herself a grandaughter with sperm from her dead son," said Fumanal in an interview with Cadena Ser, cited by CNN. "She put a camera in her face and sold the exclusive."

The matter of the surrogacy is even being discussed in the Spanish parliament. The Spanish Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, said the following: "I want to remind you that surrogacy is a practice that is not legal in Spain."

In fact, she said, Spain's new legislation on sexual and reproductive rights labels surrogacy as "a form of violence against women."

The Spanish Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, said that her Socialist Worker's Party is against surrogacy. "It is a form of exploitation of women's bodies," the minister said in a statement reported by RTVE's 24-hour news channel.

In response to the criticism, Obregón has said that the debate in Spain is "absurd." The actress is allowed to bring a baby into the country that was conceived in a way that is illegal in Spain, because she has "documents proving that she is legally recognized as the baby’s mother in the United States, and adopting a child born abroad is legal in Spain," CNN explains.

Obregón seems to have remarked correctly in ¡HOLA! that surrogacy is "very normalized" in the US. American media have mostly commented on the debate in Spain, but they have generally refrained from any criticism of the practice of surrogacy in the US itself.

And what is known about Aless Lequio's father, Alessandro Lequio - the new grandfather to the child? To date, the Italian aristocrat is missing and has not yet commented on the matter.

However, there are already some voices, such as those published in the magazine 'Semana,' that point to a rift between Ana Obregón and Alessandro Lequio. "I'm finding out things that I was not aware of," Count Lequio is quoted as saying on the cover of the magazine.