• LOC Isabel Pantoja to Pablo Motos: "The people who have done wrong with me have to repent. I don't think I've done anyone wrong."

"The night is gone from mother." Pablo Motos could not be more forceful when Isabel Pantoja 'sang' – I put it in quotes because it was a bad playback, but bad, bad, bad ... – her first song and the audience went into an ecstasy rarely seen in El Hormiguero, shouting like posesos "Isabel, Isabel, Isabel!" or "another, another, another!". A delirium that took over the entire set, the public, Isabel Pantoja herself, Pablo Motos himself, the ants... A season either starts by hitting the table or you don't start, I say.

The reason that Isabel Pantoja was chosen by Pablo Motos and El Hormiguero to start this season is none other than the scandalous audience ratings that the artist made in her last and only visit to the program: it was and continues to be the most watched program in the history of El Hormiguero. It was seen on average by more than 5 million people and reached peaks of up to 7 million. "Like a Madrid-Barça," Pablo Motos told La Pantoja last night as soon as he sat in front of her.

Last night, Isabel Pantoja did not reach the almost 24% share of screen of 2017, but marked a 19% share. Paraphrasing Jesulín de Ubrique: IM-Pressing. No, it did not exceed the data of its first visit, but this time Isabel Pantoja did not reappear after months and months hidden. In fact, Isabel Pantoja returned to El Hormiguero, first, because "I feel safe and at home", and, second, because she is promoting. Come on, the usual in the guests of El Hormiguero.

That El Hormiguero chose her, the most watched character in its history, and that she chose El Hormiguero is no coincidence, it is a symbiosis that suited both of them. El Hormiguero had to premiere season pulling muscle -although it takes it out every night- in the face of the premiere of Chinese Tales, the new program by Jorge Javier Vázquez for the access of Telecinco that premieres next day 11. And Isabel Pantoja, like any artist, has to promote her own. And theirs is a double album and a book that will come out in December, along with a tour that has already begun and that I do not even want to imagine what it must be like seeing the one that was mounted last night in El Hormiguero with his presence.

Obviously, the people who were in the audience were unconditional fans of the artist. But a lot of fans have gone to El Hormiguero and the stands have never been about to fall. Last night, if they are allowed 10 more minutes, they invade the set and throw themselves into the arms of the tonadillera. Cries of "pretty, pretty pretty!", shouts of "Isabel, Isabel, Isabel!". She, delighted, with that smile and those eyes crystallized by a kind of emotion that always accompanies artists like her.

"They have been hard personal years, but at the same time I have had God by my side and my audience, because this audience is the whole, it is the one that gives me life is the one that believed in me when I went out to sing when I was 15 years old (...) I have done this exclusively for my fans," said La Pantoja looking at the stands, with tears on the edge of his eye... The set fell apart. She looked at them, they cheered at her. What more could you ask for?

Well, for those who tuned in last night El Hormiguero with the intention of seeing an interview with Isabel Pantoja in the old Telecinco way, let it be forgotten. It was an interview to talk about projects, more projects, double album and if it were not for Pablo Motos who introduced a more intimate and emotional side in that would have stayed. Isabel Pantoja was not going to talk about anything but her career, Pablo Motos was only going to ask her about that and everything else would have been to break the reason why Isabel Pantoja does go to El Hormiguero and not somewhere else.

And let's be thankful that Pablo Motos knew how to pull emotion because if he had not done it to see how he would have filled the more than half an hour of interview. And that Isabel Pantoja last night did not need more than to smile, look at the camera, smile again and again at the camera. Of course, the tears that are not missing.

The memory of Isabel Pantoja's mother and Pablo Motos' memory of his mother broke (or tried to break) a visit too promotional, too tailor-made for La Pantoja. "When someone you love leaves there is a way to honor her, which is memories," Pablo Motos told her after the artist remembered her mother. "I remember my mother on the couch," the presenter continued. "My mother was very sick and my sister told me 'come here'. When she went in to see her, my sister told me that if she said something nonsensical that I should continue. Upon entering, my mother got up, grabbed my face and said 'handsome'. He sat back and let himself go. My mother's last minute was a moment that only my mother knew how to do." It was difficult for Isabel Pantoja to get out of there. He didn't come out, the rest, he dodged them all.

It is clear that Isabel Pantoja had no intention of talking about her personal life, her controversies and family, which she drags since the sun heats up, but do not forget that she is Isabel Pantoja and that if she has to release gauntlets with night and treachery she releases them. The same for the viewer are imperceptible, but there were.

There were when she insisted on ensuring that no one had her kidnapped and that if she did not leave the house much it is because she likes to be at home, tired of so much traveling. There were when she remembered all the people who are a support for her – her brothers, her fans, her sister-in-law, her soul friends – and obviously, it could not be otherwise, referring to her children or someone from the closest family. There were when on two occasions she told Pablo Motos that she only did things that have "a tremendous category" such as her album or if a docuseries of her life arises and can be done. There were when Pablo Motos reminded him of one of his statements of her affirming that the Isabel with 25 years would tell him not to regret anything and La Pantoja last night, the one of now released a "I do not regret anything, the people who have done badly with me have to repent because I believe that I have not done wrong to anyone". A good understanding ...

Isabel Pantoja is an expert in casting the rod just enough and necessary to catch what she wants. The Isabel Pantoja of last night is the Isabel Pantoja that enchants, that falls in love, that controls and sets the pace. It does not matter if it says a lot, little or nothing, the simple fact of having it in the most desired and valued television slot is to have everything. And it doesn't matter if that whole is better or worse because the interest is her, whatever she does.

Her job was to be the godmother of season 18 of El Hormiguero. He fulfilled that task perfectly. Perhaps, different from other premieres of previous seasons where, in addition to the godfather or godmother and the film of El Hormiguero that opens each television course, something spectacular was presented beyond the interview or the simple fact of starting a new year of El Hormiguero. Being Isabel Pantoja, only Isabel Pantoja was needed.

And that's why, if Isabel Pantoja goes out to sing and the performance is a playback, but a bad playback, it doesn't matter, because the show is to see her, Pantoja herself dressed in a shawl, showing the legs of the Spanish couplet. Show where there are, show for which people pay to see it and last night I was in El Hormiguero just by giving a channel. It would be a playback and it would be bad, but Isabel Pantoja gave everything and more. To such an extent that never before any artist who has performed in El Hormiguero has sung two songs, last night Isabel Pantoja before the unbridled cry of the public asking for another, threw herself for another.

"The night is gone from mother." Motos' phrase said it all. Isabel Pantoja, in ecstasy; Pablo Motos, in ecstasy; The audience in ecstasy. And a final with tail gown included, with two tail robes, that of La Pantoja, that of Pablo Motos, that of El Hormiguero. "Here Isabel Pantoja opening the season. With this cockiness, this art we say goodbye to the first program of the season." The muscle.

  • Isabel Pantoja
  • The Anthill
  • Pablo Motos
  • Antenna 3