Presenter and writer Sandra Barneda (Barcelona, 50 years old) and former Dutch dancer Pascalle Paerel (35 years old) have announced that they are getting married soon. “The best ‘yes’ of our lives is yet to come. We are getting married,” they wrote this Tuesday, July 28, in a joint Instagram post, along with a video showing photos of them laughing, kissing, and playing together. The post quickly filled with thousands of Likes and comments, including those from well-known friends of Barneda, such as Lara Álvarez, Laura Escanes, Ana Milán, and Xuso Jones. “Congratulations, couple!” actress Vanesa Romero wrote to them. “Long live love! Congratulations, amazing couple!” commented Paula Echevarría.
Barneda, finalist for the Planeta Prize in 2020, already announced this Monday in the stories of her Instagram profile that she had news for her more than 1.1 million followers. “I’ve been keeping something very special to myself for a while… and finally, tomorrow, the time to tell you arrives,” she posted along with a countdown. Hours later, the news of the wedding arrived, without revealing more details about where or when they will celebrate their big day.
The couple started dating in 2022, after the Catalan’s breakup with television collaborator Nagore Robles, following five years of relationship. “Love also means accepting endings and letting go, even if it’s a difficult decision. To avoid speculation and defamatory news about us, we have mutually decided to announce that for a few months now we are no longer a couple,” wrote the presenter of La isla de las tentaciones on February 15, 2022, accompanying a photo with her ex-partner. In December of that same year, ¡Hola! published photos of Barneda walking hand in hand with Paerel through the streets of Madrid, but they did not make their relationship public until 2024.
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The Dutch woman holds a law degree and has worked for years as a dancer with the prestigious National Opera Ballet of the Netherlands. She has a daughter from a previous relationship and, since leaving dance, she runs a modeling agency in Amsterdam. On March 29, Barneda shared a carousel of images in the Dutch capital with her girlfriend, implying that she had moved in with her. “Who would have thought… So happy with my life in Amsterdam,” said the description of the post. “For love, my life has changed and now I live surrounded by canals. Now I have a new home. Now Leo [her dog] is discovering other lands,” she noted in each of the images in the post. “And I am very happy here with you,” she assured in the last one, a selfie of the couple.
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In an interview with EL PAÍS in September 2022, shortly after her breakup with Robles, Barneda reflected on love and relationships. “The perfect couple does not exist. We have to stop whitewashing the couple because it is, or can be, a hell that is not told. Then they separate and everyone says ‘they looked so happy.’ And that’s bullshit, things happen in all couples. And if they don’t happen, that couple is dead. It’s what I was telling you before about emotions. We don’t know how to manage them. Emotionally, we are in our underwear,” she said.
Paerel maintains a low media profile and is discreet about her private life, but from time to time she shares glimpses of her life with Barneda on Instagram, where she has 22,400 followers. This Monday, for example, she posted some photos in the Dominican Republic, the setting of La isla de las tentaciones. The images show the former dancer on a beach wearing a t-shirt from the reality show her girlfriend hosts or bathing in its paradisiacal waters. She has also shared a photo of Barneda smiling alongside two other people, presumably during the filming of the new season of the program. “The office of the last week: La isla de las tentaciones,” she wrote.
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