Former employees of Julio Iglesias’s mansions accuse the singer of sexual assault

Two women claim that Julio Iglesias sexually assaulted them while they were working as live-in employees at his Caribbean mansions. A domestic worker says that she was pressured into having sex with Julio Iglesias, describing acts of penetration, slapping, and physical and verbal abuse. She and another woman, a physical therapist who also worked with him, say that they were subjected to inappropriate touching, insults and humiliation during their workday, in an atmosphere of control and constant harassment. According to their accounts, the events took place in 2021. The younger of the two women was 22 at the time.

Rebeca— whose name has been changed to protect her identity—claims that the Spanish artist, who was 77 at the time, would often call her to his room at the end of the workday. There, he would penetrate her anally and vaginally with his fingers without her consent, according to her account. “He used me almost every night,” she said, speaking to elDiario.es and Univision Noticias. “I felt like an object, like a slave,” she added. These sexual encounters almost always took place in the presence and with the participation of another employee who held a position of hierarchical superiority over this domestic worker.

One of the other women interviewed, Laura (not her real name), claims that Julio Iglesias kissed her on the mouth and touched her breasts against her will. “We were at the beach and he came up to me and touched my nipples,” said the former employee. She added that a similar incident also occurred by the pool at the singer’s villa in Punta Cana, a luxury resort in the Dominican Republic.

These two testimonies are consistent with other accounts obtained by elDiario.es and Univision Noticias during their reporting.

Fearing the consequences of sharing their accounts, two of the women interviewed by elDiario.es and Univision sought legal advice and were referred to an international human rights organization. The women accepted their advice of their own accord and without the involvement of the media news outlets.

Journalists from elDiario.es and Univision repeatedly tried to contact Julio Iglesias and his lawyer through various channels but received no response to the questions sent by email, telephone messages, and letters delivered to his homes.

The events described by Rebeca and Laura took place at Julio Iglesias’ residences in Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) and Lyford Cay (Bahamas) with the knowledge of the women in charge of managing the household and hiring staff, according to these two former employees. elDiario.es and Univision have repeatedly tried to contact the person in charge of managing the house and selecting staff through various channels but she has not responded to questions sent by these media outlets. On the other hand, the woman who Rebeca identified as her first supervisor when she started working at the mansion in Punta Cana, and with whom she claimed to have had her first sexual encounter with Julio Iglesias, dismissed the allegations as patrañas, a Spanish term meaning nonsense, and claimed that she worked for the singer as a “dancer for many years.” She added that she had only “gratitude, admiration, and respect for the great artist and human being that he is,” describing him as “humble, generous, a great gentleman, and very respectful to all women.”

The house manager responsible for selecting employees also arranged for medical examinations for domestic workers, including gynecological exams and tests for sexually transmitted diseases. These tests were carried out in June 2021, as confirmed by documentation accessed by elDiario.es. According to Rebeca, this same house manager encouraged and participated in Julio Iglesias’ sexual requests. At the time of publication of this article, this employee has not responded to questions from elDiario.es and Univision Noticias.

During three years of journalistic investigation, elDiario.es and Univision Noticias have contacted 15 former Julio Iglesias employees, including domestic and other skilled staff who worked at different times between the late 1990s and 2023 in the singer’s homes in the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and Spain. These interviews describe the women’s conditions of isolation, labor disputes, the hierarchical structure of the staff, and the tense atmosphere created by Iglesias’s short-tempered character. The two women who reported sexual assault were interviewed repeatedly over more than a year and their accounts remained consistent throughout. Their statements are supported by extensive documentary evidence, such as photographs, call logs, WhatsApp messages, visas, medical reports, and other documents.

A place where “abuse is normalized”

Laura recalls that what seemed like “a dream home” when she arrived soon turned out to be a place dominated by an atmosphere of almost daily ‘fights and “anger” if something was not done according to Julio Iglesias’ taste or criteria. This woman describes an “uncomfortable” environment that kept the workers tense, “in a constant state of alert” and ‘irritable’; a place where Iglesias “normalized abuse.” In Rebeca’s words, “that house should be called the little house of terror because it is a nightmare — something truly horrible.” About ten domestic workers used to live in the house in Punta Cana. According to a document seen by elDiario.es and Univision Noticias, Julio Iglesias had 16 employees in August 2023.

“Julio is a very controlling person,” said Laura. She claims that Iglesias exercises that power “through fear.” “He threatens to fire you and constantly reminds you that working for him is the best thing that has ever happened to you. He lives by reminding you what the rules are, what you can and cannot do,” she added. That level of control was obvious in countless details — from monitoring “how much food” they were served on their plates to asking when they “got their periods”, Laura said. According to Rebeca, in her case, that authority was enforced by demanding to see her phone at any time. “I made sure there was nothing visible on it because I knew he would check it,’ Rebeca said. ”I always archived chats or hid photos, because we were forbidden from taking pictures in the villa, and since I had photos, I was afraid he would see them.“

Vista aérea de la casa de Julio Iglesias en Punta Cana, Republica Dominicana, en una imagen de 2003.

The women interviewed by elDiario.es worked for Julio Iglesias when the Dominican Republic was still experiencing the effects of the pandemic. Iglesias mentioned fear of contagion to ban or limit his domestic workers from going outside his compound at any time of day. However, the government restrictions at that time were only in place at night, with a curfew that ended in August 2021. In any case, according to the workers interviewed, the house managers, as well as the male staff, were allowed to come and go.

When these young women entered the singer’s service in the Dominican Republic, they didn’t sign a formal written employment contract. Some of them claim that they worked ten-hour shifts, which for some employees could be extended to 16 hours. They did not get any time off until after three months of uninterrupted work. Iglesias framed the job as a great opportunity, one that would allow them to live in dream homes and travel to other countries. 

Looking back, Laura recalls the contrast between what she saw on the outside and what she felt on the inside: “How is it possible that I live in this paradise and all I want is to be locked in this room?” “I fell into a deep depression and realized that I didn’t want to be there,” she said.

Only the most trusted employees accompanied the singer during his temporary stays in the Bahamas or Spain. In both 2021 and 2022, two of the women from the Punta Cana service were chosen to work during the summer at the artist’s home in Malaga. elDiario.es has spoken to three of the four employees who traveled to Spain during those two years, who claim that the working hours there were more demanding than in Punta Cana and that they were not allowed to leave freely the Ojén estate — 10 kilometers from Marbella.

Sexual requests

The accounts of former employees consistently describe a recruitment system that begins with advertisements on social media offering domestic work with accommodation included, aimed at young women. “Aged 25 to 35, live-in position, benefits: 25,000 pesos” (about €350 at the exchange rate at the time), read one of these ads to which one of the women interviewed replied. The person in charge of hiring, who was the manager of the employees in the house, asked them for pictures of their faces and full bodies during the initial exchange of information. According to WhatsApp conversations seen by elDiario.es, the hiring was agreed upon without a personal interview.

Shortly after arriving, according to Laura and Rebeca, Julio Iglesias asked them intimate questions—such as “do you like women?”, “do you like threesomes?”, “have you had breast surgery?”. On several occasions, he asked to see their breasts and even touched them on the pretext of checking how their breast augmentation surgery had turned out or so that he could assess whether they should have it done. In these types of conversations, he also made sexual advances, pressured them repeatedly to agree, and insulted them. “Boluda”, a derogatory term meaning stupid, was his most common expletive, according to the accounts of these women and other witnesses.

According to Laura and Rebeca, the pressure did not come only from him, but also from the house managers, who urged their subordinates to comply with the requests. One of the two women identified as the managers refused to answer detailed questions on this, but described the allegations as “nonsense.” The other one did not provide any answer.

The insistence described by the former employees could happen in public, such as the request to Laura to undress in front of her colleagues—something that was confirmed by a guest present in the house. And it could happen in private, in Julio Iglesias’s room, at night. If the women did not comply, they describe suffering contempt and humiliation from the singer.

Julio Iglesias and two companions on the beach, helping him get in and out of the water in front of his home in Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, in 2020.

“When I tell him I don’t want to be with him, he starts insulting me viciously, saying how could I not want to be with him, that there are countless models desperate to be with him, and that I am always by his side only because he wants me there and has grown attached to me,” said Rebeca. Iglesias told Rebeca something she says she will never forget: that she was a “lucky princess for being in his house.” To herself, she said, “How can I be a lucky princess if I work more than 16 hours?” At that moment, Rebeca didn’t dare say another word, but she burst into tears. “He was trying to tell me that I had no right, under any circumstances, to say no to him, to reject him,” she said.

A hierarchy of employees

The experiences of six former employees or visitors who spoke to elDiario.es portray a consistent picture of the dynamics within Iglesias’s estates. There are two categories of employees, those who work in domestic service and those who have specific roles, such as physiotherapists or simply companions or guests of the singer, whom the domestic workers had to address as señoritas. Above them are the house managers, who give orders to the rest, handle all household matters, and are responsible for communicating and executing the orders of the owner of the house, the boss. elDiario.es has identified two women who held the position of house manager or head of service at Iglesias’ mansions and who, according to Rebeca’s account, occasionally urged or asked the domestic workers to go to the singer’s room to have sex with him in the presence of the supervisors. One of the house managers has not responded to messages from elDiario.es and Univision Noticias. The other has not responded to specific questions, but said that she has “nothing to say in response to these accusations.”

Rebeca was part of the artist’s household staff in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas for ten months and quickly became one of Iglesias’s most trusted employees. 

When Rebeca replied to the job offer on WhatsApp, a woman asked her for references, five pictures, and a resume. She also asked if she had any children. Rebeca did not have a letter of reference, but just a few hours later, she was called and told she was hired. There was no personal interview. She was 22 years old.

Shortly after she started working as a cleaner in the residence, the compliments about her appearance began. So did the warnings and rules: she couldn’t have a boyfriend while working for Julio Iglesias, photography was banned inside the house, as well as in the gardens or on the private beach. She had to hand over her cell phone to her boss if he asked to check her photos and WhatsApp conversations. In addition, employees were forbidden from leaving the house, supposedly because of the singer’s fear of contagion, interacting with maintenance workers and talking or befriending each other. But, one way or another, some managed to break those rules.

The first request that made Rebeca uncomfortable, who had been hired to clean and cook, was to give Julio Iglesias a foot massage. He gave her a $50 tip. It was the only time he gave her money after a request that went beyond her job duties.

The next unusual episode happened when a house manager told her that swimming in the sea with Julio Iglesias was also part of her job, as it was for other cleaners and waitresses. “Before going down [to the beach], I got nervous and asked a cook who had been there for years if that was normal. I said, ‘I’m not used to that kind of interaction with a boss.’ But she told me it was normal,” Rebeca said, recalling that she had to accompany him on multiple occasions. The first time, Rebeca wore shorts over her bikini, but the house manager and Julio Iglesias told her to take them off. “When I took them off, he told me to turn around and commented that I had great buttocks,” she said.

That morning, already in the water at the private beach of his mansion in Punta Cana, the singer asked Rebeca, “Are you free?”. He added something else that she couldn’t understand. “I innocently said yes, because I was single,” she said. “Then he says to me, ‘Will you come to my room tonight?’ I say yes, but I’m not thinking that it’s to have sex.” After lunch, one of the two supervisors Rebeca had during her stay at the house and who had overheard the conversation on the beach, asked her if she was “sure” about what she had agreed to. “She said to me, ‘Look, he wants us to sleep together tonight.’ I told her I wasn’t going to do it, that I was very nervous and didn’t want to do that. The supervisor insisted, ”You have to do it, you said yes,“ Rebeca recalled. She tried to avoid the encounter, but she said it was impossible. Rebecca’s manager didn’t respond to the questions about this episode from elDiario.es.

Julio Iglesias and two companions on the beach, helping him get in and out of the water in front of his home in Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic, in 2010.

When night fell, after cleaning the kitchen, her supervisor called her to get ready. She made her change her clothes, put on high heels and a Hawaiian accessory. “She tells me that, if I want, I can put my hand on my vulva, so she doesn’t have to touch me. And I do that. We pretend,” Rebeca said. Before entering the bedroom, her supervisor made her drink several glasses of wine and shots of tequila.

Once in the bedroom, where she was given more alcohol, she found Julio Iglesias naked from the waist down. The supervisor kissed Rebeca on the mouth. “I was very embarrassed and didn’t let her touch me much. I felt her touching me and I didn’t want that. He (Iglesias) would remove my hand from my vulva, but I would immediately put it back,” she said. The next day, Rebeca woke up in his room, vomiting and hungover. She had no memory of what happened after the last thing she remembered. 

A few days later, Rebeca accompanied her boss to spend a few days at his Bahamian mansion on the island of New Providence. There, she was called back to Julio Iglesias’ room at eleven o’clock at night. This time, it was a different supervisor, higher in rank than the previous one, who was waiting for her there. It was the same woman who had arranged her hiring. According to Rebeca, Iglesias and the supervisor were waiting for her in bed, half-naked. 

From that day on, Iglesias and the female supervisors demanded her services every night. “I started work at 8 a.m. and finished at 11 p.m. From there, they would call me to [Iglesias’] room, and I would leave at midnight or 1 a.m. to go to my room to sleep,” she recalled. “They would call me four or five times a week to be with them in their room,” she said. “They only let me rest when his wife was with him in Punta Cana or when he was with another señorita” she added. “While she [the supervisor who had hired her] was there, he did whatever he wanted with me,” Rebeca said. elDiario.es and Univision Noticias have contacted Miranda Rijnsburger, Julio Iglesias’ wife, but have not received a response.

“He grabbed my vulva very hard and it hurt a lot. […] I told him, ‘it’s uncomfortable, I don’t want this,’ but he kept going,” Rebeca said. “Sometimes I also had to pretend because I told him no and he wouldn’t listen.” 

On one occasion, despite her refusal, Rebeca claims that, at the house in the Bahamas, he penetrated her anally with his fingers and she felt “a lot of pain”; “I told him no more over five times,” she said, but he continued anyway. At that moment, the woman felt she couldn’t escape. “I’m your fucking robot, your slave, your doll. And I can’t move, I can’t move,” Rebeca recalled thinking at the time. “He also slapped me in the face extremely hard, with tremendous force — it was horrible”, she said. She added that Iglesias also slapped the supervisor. “She also bit my legs,” she added. Rebeca showed elDiario.es photographs taken at that time showing bruises and bite marks. Her manager didn’t answer the questions about this episode posed by elDiario.es and Univision Noticias.

These situations happened again. Rebecca recalls a day Julio Iglesias was suffering from sciatica, an ailment that goes back a long way. In 1963, he was involved in a car accident and, during his hospitalization, a tumor was detected. As a result of the operation, he has suffered from back problems, which he has tried to treat with exercise and physical therapy. At his age, these problems have worsened, causing him great pain and limiting his mobility. “He suffered a lot from cramps,” said the physical therapist who cared for him. 

“He was in so much pain that his leg was shaking and he couldn’t sleep,” Rebeca said. When the pain worsened, Rebeca cared for him around the clock for days, taking turns with her supervisor. “I was like a zombie that week — I didn’t sleep.”

On one of those days of illness, she was told to go to his room at night. “He had me spending hours running my tongue over his anus and sucking his dick […] because he was in a lot of pain and it calmed him down. I spent most of the night sucking his genitals. When I stopped or fell asleep, he would pull my head so I would continue,” the woman said in one of several interviews for this report.

During an interview with elDiario.es and Univision Noticias, Laura recalls a conversation with Julio Iglesias that fits with the episode described by Rebeca. 

“He started saying, ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night because the cramps kept me awake. Poor Rebeca and the manager didn’t sleep at all, and Rebeca spent the whole night sucking me off to see if it would make me sleepy, but no way, I couldn’t sleep a wink all night.’ I answered him as if it were a joke. He always made these kinds of comments and then said it was a joke,” said the physical therapist.

Julio Iglesias, in 2011.

In addition to these episodes that took place away out of sight of others, Julio Iglesias also treated Rebeca in a way that made her suffer in front of her work colleagues in public. “He would say nasty things to me, like I was nobody,” she said. These remarks shook her particularly when they happened in the Bahamas, a country that was not her own. “He was at home treating me terribly, talking to me badly, scolding me, and insulting me in front of the other girls, and all I could do was cry because what else could I do?”

“You feel compelled to do it,” said Rebeca about sexual pressure. “Most of the time […], I never thought about the fear of losing my job. It was something he forced you to do. It created a kind of power over you, that you had to do it no matter what.”

There came a point when she felt she couldn’t take it anymore. She had already quit her job several times, but her employers convinced her to stay. She suffered from chest pressure and tachycardia, which led her to undergo medical tests. elDiario.es has been able to verify these documents. In a phone call, Rebeca told Julio Iglesias, crying, that she wanted to quit her job because she felt sick and tired, while he insisted on keeping her.

In the weeks after she left the house, Rebeca couldn’t stop crying. 

“I was a girl from the neighborhood, ignorant, so to speak,” she said. “He took advantage of my innocence.” “They used me, they trampled on me, they did whatever they wanted with me at that time. I remember myself back then and I feel sorry for myself, ” she added. “I suffered a lot.” 

Rebeca needed psychological therapy to process everything she experienced in Julio Iglesias’s homes. Between August and December 2022, Rebeca underwent psychological therapy with a neuropsychologist whose initials are A. M. (this name has been withheld to protect Rebeca’s identity). With her permission, elDiario.es and Univision Noticias have confirmed with the specialist that Rebeca spoke about the sexual abuse she claims to have experienced at Julio Iglesias´s house. The therapist, who has a degree in psychology from the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo and a master’s degree in neuropsychology from the University of Salamanca, said that when Rebeca recounted what had happened, she did so “with great shame” and that she came to therapy with an “anxiety disorder.” He recalls how she told him that she suffered “penetration with fingers” and that Iglesias “forced her to be with another girl.”

“She could say she felt forced even though she couldn’t say exactly why. Because it wasn’t like they put a gun to her head or held a knife to her. […] He made her feel very bad,” he said.

The neuropsychologist concluded that Rebeca suffered from dysthymic depression, a type of depression that is “persistent over time,” even before her time at Julio Iglesias’s house. When asked if this disorder could have been worsened by the abuse she reported, A.M. replied affirmatively: “It had affected her enormously, especially in terms of symptoms related to self-esteem […]. Many of the symptoms found in a person with depression had worsened significantly in [Rebeca’s] case”.

Despite it being against the house rules, Rebeca had a relationship with a Spanish man while she was still working for Julio Iglesias. elDiario.es contacted him and he confirmed that the woman had told him at the time what was happening in the house. 

Raúl (not his real name) urged her to leave and encouraged her to report it, according to both, but Rebeca was afraid and did not do so. “She told me that at one point she had told him she didn’t want to do that anymore [allow the sexual assaults], and that the guy [Iglesias] had got pissed off,” Raúl recalled. “What was happening was that he [Iglesias] was abusing a very significant position of power. Anything he said had a huge impact on her; there was manipulation there,” said this man three years after the incident.

elDiario.es has checked with Raúl the account that Rebeca has provided in several interviews over the course of two years. In addition, this person has submitted various documentary pieces of evidence recorded in 2021 that are consistent with the accounts.

Besides Raúl, four people contacted by elDiario.es say that they met Rebeca while she was working for Julio Iglesias. One of them confirms that she was called to his room at night and that Rebeca began to show worrying symptoms, such as exhaustion, sadness, and episodes of crying.

This newspaper has accessed two pieces of documentary evidence confirming Rebeca’s employment relationship with Julio Iglesias: her employment certificate, a document signed by her employers attesting to where, when, and for whom she worked, as well as a work visa as an employee of Julio Iglesias in the Bahamas. In addition, elDiario.es has access to medical examinations, photographs, and WhatsApp conversations that prove how the employment relationship developed.

Rebeca connected with Julio Iglesias sometime after leaving the house in March 2023. She explained that, before being contacted by elDiario.es and in an effort to obtain evidence of what had happened, she sent him a WhatsApp message saying that she loved him very much and wanted to talk to him. Iglesias called her, but she was unable to answer. Rebeca said that she didn’t try to contact him any further. In October 2024, she met with elDiario.es for the first time and, in September 2025, with Univision Noticias.

The ‘señoritas’

Laura worked as Julio Iglesias’s personal physical therapist for several months, both at his home in the Dominican Republic and in the Bahamas. She belonged to a group of employees known as señoritas (young ladies), who enjoyed higher status and better working conditions than “the service,” the domestic workers. While the latter shared bathrooms and rooms, the señoritas had their own space and more free time. A “very classist” separation, according to Laura. She was also struck by the way these women greeted Julio Iglesias: all lined up at the door, hands behind their backs, smiling, dressed in uniforms that reminded Laura of the slaves of the time of Venezuelan independence’s leader Simón Bolívar.

Julio Iglesias’s employees in her uniform

Unlike the domestic workers, who negotiated their working conditions with the house manager, Laura received a call directly from a man “with a heavy Spanish accent.” “He said, ‘This is Julio Iglesias speaking, are you ready for your life to change?’ […] and boy, did my life change,” she said. It was the first few days of January 2021.

Although he was “accomodating” at first, the physical therapist claims that she was repeatedly humiliated later on. 

During her first week of work in Punta Cana, Iglesias showed her a refrigerator where he kept Spanish brand beers and offered her one whenever she wanted. Shortly after, when he saw Laura helping herself to one, he yelled at her and scolded her in front of other señoritas,“ who ”lowered their heads,“ according to Laura. 

On another occasion, the singer chastised her for eating soup that he had said was watery. “Are you making me look bad?” Laura recalled him saying. “He got very angry and made me leave the table. I took my plate and went to finish eating in the kitchen. Until that moment, I hadn’t understood that we were living in a dictatorship, that we simply had to say or do what he said, regardless of our own opinions.”

“When he got upset, he was very offensive. One day we had a big fight because I didn’t remove a cold pack in time during a physical therapy session. I locked myself in a room and cried. He called me, and I said I wasn’t coming out because I didn’t want to listen to his attacks anymore. Then one of the girls came to get me. She told me that I needed to be brave and that I had to go because if I didn’t, it would be worse.” 

Laura agreed and left the room, which was a refrigerated pantry. “After that, he took me in the golf cart through the garden to the room where I slept, since it’s a very big house. He said many things to me and, in the end, he grabbed my knee and said, ‘I forgive you, and I’m going to give you a second chance.’ So, I wondered what was going on there. I may have made a mistake, but he was humiliating me, insulting me, yelling at me.”

Laura had to treat the singer twice a day. “In the morning, I would think, ‘Oh my God, it’s dawn already. I don’t want to leave here’ [the room]. I was always afraid of what to do or what to say, and I ended up falling into a deep depression,” she said. “He would call you out and humiliate you in public, at mealtimes, in front of everyone at the table, because he didn’t say those things to you in private. Lunchtime was almost always a tragedy. If you ate a lot, it was because you ate a lot. He always said I was fat and that I had to lose weight.”

Several women point out Julio Iglesias’s obsession with his employees being “skinny.” One claims that he even made them step on the scale to check their weight. 

The physical therapist recalls that the tables at lunchtime were lavishly set, with several dishes placed in the center, and the diners—Julio Iglesias surrounded by a group of women, almost always employees but occasionally guests—served themselves.

Two weeks after starting work for the artist, during lunch and in front of several people, Julio Iglesias asked Laura if her breasts were “natural or surgically enhanced.” “I had had surgery, so he told me to ‘show them,’” she said. 

According to Laura, it was difficult to tell when Iglesias was being serious and when he was joking. Laura refused, but he called her boluda and assured her that “all” women“ showed them, and that in Spain it was ‘normal’ because women go topless on the beaches.” Some of the women at the table, including two house managers, encouraged her to do so. “So, under pressure or because I couldn’t say no, I got up and showed them. It didn’t seem normal to me, but from the moment I walked into that house, I realized that everything was out of the ordinary, that it wasn’t run in the professional manner you would expect,” she said. “They make you believe it’s a family, but there are limits, there are rules, there are things you learn the hard way.”

After these episodes, Julio Iglesias went even further. 

“There were several occasions where he would say to me, ‘Come here, come closer.’ We were at the beach, he would come up to me and touch my nipples, squeezing them,” she said. According to Laura, she felt paralyzed, but she told Iglesias he was hurting her. “It’s not just that he’s touching you, he is causing you pain… He squeezed them very hard,” she said.

Laura claims that he masked these touches as “medical curiosity” about how her breasts had been left after the operation, asking her if she had lost sensitivity. “He also asked me, when we were alone, if I liked threesomes, if I liked women, and if I was open-minded.” On other occasions, he would ask her personal questions such as “when do you touch yourself?” 

Laura recalls these conversations as “uncomfortable” and says she did not want to have them with her boss, so she would give “curt” answers. She describes her boss as “volatile, aggressive, and humiliating.”

On one occasion, in late summer 2021, while in Julio Iglesias’s room, he unexpectedly grabbed her head very tightly and stuck his tongue down her throat, she said. After that incident, according to Laura, Iglesias suggested that she sleep with another employee of his and with him at the same time that night. She said no, but he insisted multiple times. Despite her refusals, during dinner, he told her he would be waiting for her in his room later. When she was adamant in her refusal, he told her he was joking.

Over time, she realized that these were not jokes. “I should have noticed that the abuse, both verbal and physical and sexual, was real and not just happening to me,” Laura said in a recent interview with elDiario.es and Univision. “I was able to say no, and to a certain extent, he respected that no. But there were girls who couldn’t say no. And he did what he wanted with them.”

elDiario.es and Univision Noticias checked this account with a friend of Laura’s, with whom she had frequent telephone conversations during her stay in Punta Cana. This woman, whose initials are P. M. (her name has been concealed in order to make it difficult to identify Laura), had studied psychology. Based on the symptoms her friend described—“shortness of breath and sweaty palms”—she concluded that the physiotherapist was suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. “She tried to normalize it because she wanted to keep that job, at the expense of her mental health,” she said.

P. M. recalls that Laura told her more specific details about Julio Iglesias’s behavior, such as that he called her “stupid or useless” and had asked to see her breasts. She was particularly shocked when Laura told her that he had “touched her nipple.” “She was kind of depressed,” said P.M., describing her friend after leaving the house. “No one can come out of abuse unscathed.”

A third woman, a former cleaning employee at Julio Iglesias’s house in Punta Cana, has confirmed to elDiario.es incidents of shouting and humiliation directed at her and her colleagues: “I saw almost all of them cry because we were verbally abused. When he got angry, he would say nasty things to the girls. One day he woke up in a bad mood and wanted to fire someone, so he fired her. even when she had done nothing wrong. He was very rude,” said Carolina—not her real name—a 30-year-old Dominican woman.

This former domestic worker realized that something “strange” was going on in the house, as she received many warnings, such as the employees should not be talking among themselves. Much less taking photos or videos. 

“We were forbidden to talk about what happened there,” Carolina said. Despite the ban, there was whispering, said the woman. She witnessed Iglesias riding around in his golf cart accompanied by some of his employees, as well as messages or calls for Rebeca to come to Julio Iglesias’s room. Carolina points out that on at least three occasions she saw her heading for his bedroom at around 11 p.m.

“We thought that they might have had a consensual intimate relationship,” said Carolina. Some time later, when neither she nor Rebeca were working in the house, she learned from Rebeca that this was not the case. “She told me that they had an intimate relationship, but that it was not consensual, as I had thought,” she said. “She confirmed to me that it was not — that it was actually abuse.” Carolina states that she has never been sexually abused by Julio Iglesias

A woman who worked as a cook for Julio Iglesias, during an interview with elDiario.es and Univision Noticias in 2025.

A former cook at the house, interviewed by elDiario.es and Univision Noticias in the Dominican region of La Altagracia, claims that as early as 1999, when she worked in the private villa of Punta Cana, Julio Iglesias was “a very aggressive person” and that “he was always in the courtyard fighting and shouting.” 

According to the cook, the atmosphere at the house in Punta Cana made her feel uncomfortable. This and the late working hours to serve dinner at around 11 p.m. made her quit her job after only six months.

Most of the accounts gathered for this report are more recent, but all the persons interviewed by elDiario.es and Univision agree that the house was not an easy place to work. Gladys says that one of the employees she worked with in 1999 was losing his hair due to the “stress” and insults from the singer. “He gets irritated over anything,” she said.

The former employee confirmed to Univision Noticias experiencing partial hair loss due to stress caused by Julio Iglesias’s outbursts of anger.

Despite the short time since leaving the house, Rebeca and Laura feel that they have undergone a transformation. 

“Now I am a woman, and I have learned many things,” said Rebeca, “but when I got there I was 22 years old and very innocent, and he took advantage of that.” She has taken the step of speaking out to be “at peace” with herself and because of a thought that won’t leave her: “That there is another Rebeca like me who doesn’t know how to defend herself.” She wants to urge that other Rebeca not to stay silent. “I want to send a message to the girls who are in there, who think they have no way out, who are afraid to talk to him. I would like to talk to a girl who is thinking of going to work there in the future, to let her know what life is like there, so she doesn’t go in blind like I did,” she said. “I was looking for a job, looking for a way to grow, and I found someone who destroyed my life.”

Fact-checking and editing: María Ramírez and Natalia Chientaroli

Translation: Emma Reverter 

Read the Spanish version here

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