Melendi (Oviedo, 47 years old) has recalled the episode that almost ended his career, but which ended up being the turning point to become the singer he is today. In 2007, the life of Ramón Melendi Espina exploded in the least expected place: 30,000 meters high on a plane with 300 passengers. The singer-songwriter was detained for disturbing a plane bound for Mexico after causing an altercation under the influence of alcohol. After two decades of a successful career, he has recalled this “blessed mistake”: “They detain me, I spend a few days in the courts of Plaza Castilla and there my world comes to a sudden stop,” he says in the podcast El Rincón De Los Errores. “You start seeing the news, you start seeing your mother suffer and you start looking at yourself from another place. It is the hardest thing in this life, to stop blaming others for what happens and manage to look inward. That was the turning point for me to start walking that path that has not been easy at all,” he recounts.
Read more Morocco releases journalist Ali Lmrabet after holding him for three days
“I had just released a couple of albums being very young, very unconscious, very immature. Without knowing anything about yourself, believing you know everything and that you are the center of the world,” he recalls about his rise to fame. After the mistake that marked “a before and after” in his life, he began his path of personal self-discovery. But it was not an easy process nor did he realize he needed help until after being detained by the Civil Guard. In that episode, the plane could not complete the journey due to his inappropriate behavior and for the safety of the passengers.
“I was not prepared to receive help. I was forced to ask for help because of the circumstances, the public voice, and the record companies,” he confesses in the episode. “I directly put my career in danger and said: ‘Well, I have to pretend and act like I care about what they are telling me and that I believe these people that I have a problem.’ I obviously did it because I had no other choice,” he adds. “I was not convinced that I had a problem, I still had not acknowledged it,” admits the singer, who was 25 at the time and believed he was “the king of the world” thanks to his musical hits.
Read more Sánchez after the disappearance of the Gibraltar Fence: “The last wall of continental Europe falls”
View this post on Instagram
Melendi realized he did have addiction problems once he entered rehabilitation. “You feel like they are catching you,” says the singer about the process of personal introspection. Sharing space with people who were honest about their problems helped him open up: “You have things inside kept like a treasure that you don’t want people to find out about what’s inside, what you feel… And suddenly you see people talking about it, with a normality that opens you up. That step was very necessary for me,” he assures. “Not wanting to be there, I learned many things,” he reflects.
“You can fall again, because we are all the time between light and shadows, but once you see a bit of light, it is very hard to keep believing your own lies and justifying yourself,” Melendi says about his process of personal evolution. For years, the singer took refuge in drugs and alcohol to hide his vulnerability. He built a “tough guy character” that marked the start of his career, from his songs to his way of performing. “I can’t show that I am sensitive, because every time I do, I get hit. Suddenly you create a character that works because you say: ‘Well, at least they don’t mess with me.’ In my neighborhood, for example, if I say I want to be a singer, I get beaten up from all sides. I wanted to be a singer, I wanted to be sensitive. Now I see the lyrics, the voice and I say: ‘But that’s not you, you’re faking it.’ The one who sings is a character, not me,” he recalls about his beginning.
Read more The PSOE increases the gap with the PP despite corruption scandals, according to the CIS
