Paz Padilla: "When they fired me from 'Sálvame', people saw it as something terrible, but nothing happens"

Cádiz, 1969. The humorist and former television presenter

performs until November 13 at the Teatro Capitol Gran Vía in Madrid (Grupo Smedia) 'El humor de mi vida', a play based on her book of the same name after the death of her husband in 2020.

The play is a roller coaster of emotions based on my book 'El humor de mi vida', which is a 'best seller'.

And we have had more than 80 or so performances of the function, with more than 60,000 people who have already seen it.

José Mota told me the other day: What play makes you go from laughing to crying in tenths of a second?

People say it changes their lives.

There are those who describe it as 'Five hours with Mario', but modern.

Humor takes you away from fear, and death is very scary.

It's scary to leave everything you have, what you've achieved, to let go of loved ones, and then it's scary to face loneliness and life without someone.

We already know that we are going to die from the moment we are born.

What we cannot do is live behind death's back, nor hide it, put it under the bed.

Because it is there.

It's like when you go to the beach and the shade comes that separates the sun and you put the towel up.

As much as you raise the towel up, the shade will come to you, because the sun will hide.

And you also have to know that death can be lived in a serene way, with peace and harmony.

Make no mistake: death is sad, you have to cry and you cry.

But I've learned that humor helps me digest it and accept it in a different way.

That's why my profession is so beautiful,

They teach you to catch, but they don't teach you to let go.

The impermanence that the Buddhists call.

They tell you that you can continue to be young and strong, that you can be beautiful, that you can succeed, that you are going to achieve it, that you have to fight... But nobody tells you there that you will stop being young, that you let go of youth and take on maturity , that you are going to get sick, that you are going to have to let your children become independent, that you are going to go through a divorce or the end of a relationship, that you are going to be fired from your job.

When they fired me [from 'Sálvame'], people saw it as something terrible and I told them: And what's up?

That nothing happens, that it is a job, that many people are fired.

When they hire you, you assume the risk that they can fire you.

You get married and you assume the risk that that person may stop loving you or may die.

I know where I no longer want to be.

Already left.

It's that I have 50 'tacos' and I've been in a profession for 30 in which I no longer want to achieve anything.

I mean, I think I'm very lucky.

What I want is to move souls.

Society teaches you the beautiful part, the beauty of life.

That life is beautiful.

No: life is what it is.

And life is learned to value when you accept death.

Religion has made us see that death is gloomy and dark, when it is something natural.

All this, from my point of view, which I am not an expert, nor a philosopher, nor do I claim to be.

I am a humble comedian who has been living off humor for 30 years, a tool that has helped me.

It helped me in my husband's illness, that I played jokes and he laughed.

Because when you laugh in the face of adversity, nothing is that important.

The only really important thing is love.

My work is a labor of love, as José Mota tells me.

Rafael Santandreu points out to me that my work is therapeutic, that people have to go see it, because they leave with less fear of death.

Because, as I say in it,

if you are afraid of death you will die every day.

And if not, you will die only once, when it touches you.

When I got pregnant there was the gynecologist, the midwife, the childbirth preparation classes, the books on how to educate... But who helps you when the oncologist tells you that there is no going back, that we are here?

So, what can we do now?

How did she help him?

How does she prepare herself?

They talk to you about how to try not to sink.

But who talks to you about death?

What is the process of dying?

What will you feel?

Will it be a quick death?

Will it be an anguished death?

Will he lose his vision, stop walking, stop eating?

Because doctors help you live, but very few help you die.

Luckily there are palliatives.

But all those fears, that loneliness, that anguish... You can't imagine how lost you are.

And then help the environment, your children.

What is the funeral going to be like, the wake, all that distressing and new.

For me, choosing the coffin, the tombstone, was horrible.

And that is part of everyday life.

How to manage, then? He who has humor has life.

Humor unites souls and laughter is the shortest way to say: "I love you".

When you share moments of laughter with a friend, those are bonds of union that will never disappear.

The fun and funny person is never alone, he attracts happiness.

And neuroscience also says so: that it is an evolution of intelligence.

I don't go there.

I talk about how I have experienced it and how I have prepared myself for this moment.

I don't know what's after.

What I have clear is that I will die just like him and I will go to the same place.

I hope I find it.

But that doesn't bother me anymore.

What I was concerned about was helping him make his way in the best way.

Because he looks: they don't want to leave, nobody wants to die.

So I, who was next to him, had to help him to leave calmly.

And that I didn't think that he was going to look bad on me.

The fact that I was wrong made him more anxious.

That you understand that this is an act of love and that you have to go over your fear, over your pain, over your selfishness.

Put love above all that.

That's why I say that mourning is the acceptance of your own death.

What are you going to go through?

You have to accept that you are going to start living another life and that you are no longer going to be with him.

Because you have made up your mind that you were going to grow old with him.

But they are mental contracts that we set up.

Where did you sign that?

Where is it guaranteed that your partner or your children will die after you?

True The future is cabals, imaginations, mental structures that we make.

We put on a movie, also, beautiful.

It makes me very funny that we think that the future is going to be better than the present.

That if I'm going to be very famous, I'm going to get a lot of money, I'm going to live in Miami Beach, I'm going to work in Hollywood, I'm going to marry the love of my life, my son is going to be beautiful... what are you doing, mate?

That is science fiction.

Succeeding in the future does not exist, it is not real.

We need to believe that it will be better, but because we do not want to see the present.

My daughter tells me: "Mom, I have a bad face."

And I answer: "Anna, wait, I'll give you mine."

And she: "It's not that either."

So damn, enjoy what you have, you'll never be hotter than you are now, at 25 years old.

Do you think that with 60 it will be better than with 50?

I doubt it, because menopause is coming, your boobs are going to fall out and everything, except your gums that are going to rise up.

When people say they don't dance because they're old... Older is the sea and it keeps moving.

Jesús Quintero was a teacher for me.

And I have met other great professionals: I have worked with Javer Sardá, Andreu Buenafuente, Luis del Olmo, Santiago Segura, Luis Tosar, Chiquito de la Calzada.... I don't want to say that they are perfect beings.

But they are wise, each one in his own, and I suck something and I am a little bit of each one.

My friend Luis Gutiérrez, who is a psychiatrist, repeats that youth has to take good references.

Not Cristiano Ronaldo, who he has never read about in his life.

And for you "reference" is... My mother at 90 years old was practically illiterate, she knew how to read and write nothing else, but she had a depth and a wisdom that many people who have studied would already want.

What happens is that we do not want to listen to older people.

We are a society that puts aside the ugly, the old, the sick.

We don't want that.

But start talking to an older person who sits on a bench and, my goodness, what loosens you up.

It was what Quintero did.

He was El Loco de la Colina, but he would sit at his table any crazy person, a misfit, a lady who in her life had only cleaned houses... but you have to see what philosophy.

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