Madrid (AFP) – A Spanish court said Tuesday it had officially recognised a popular matador as the illegitimate son of legendary bullfighter Manuel Benitez “El Cordobes”, who had long denied being related to him.
The scandal broke in February when Manuel Diaz, 47, told “Hola!” magazine he had filed a paternity suit against his supposed father in the southern city of Cordoba after trying in vain to form a relationship with him.
Benitez, now 79, revolutionised Spain’s conservative bullfighting world in the 1960s with his acrobatic style that would sometimes see him jump on the back of the bull, earning him criticism from experts but adoration from the crowds.
His rise from an illiterate youth caught by police stealing chickens to top matador was narrated in the 1967 best-selling book “Or I’ll Dress You in Mourning: The Extraordinary Story of El Cordobes”.
Diaz, who also uses the nickname “El Cordobes”, says Benitez had a brief affair with his mother when she worked as a maid in Madrid.
But when she became pregnant, Benitez did not want to have anything to do with the child, according to him.
A court in Cordoba agreed to hear the paternity case after Diaz presented the results of DNA tests carried out on a restaurant napkin used by Benitez that was picked up by a private detective.
The court then ordered an official DNA paternity test to be carried out and the results showed there was a 99.9 percent probability Benitez was the father of “Cordobes Jr.”, Diaz’s lawyer Fernando Osuna told AFP last week.
On Tuesday, it officially recognised Diaz as Benitez’s son.
The case has gripped Spain, with the two men featuring regularly in the country’s gossip magazines.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was the day when he was asked about me during a television interview. Benitez turned away from the camera as if I were the devil. My children asked me, ‘Why doesn’t your father want to talk about you?’” Diaz told “Hola!” magazine when the story broke.
Diaz says he does not want to make any claims on Benitez’s estate and just wants to be recognised as part of a lineage he is proud of.
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