Actress who used her dead son’s sperm to have his daughter via surrogate when she was 68 gives major update on her granddaughter
Spanish actress Ana Obregón, who became a mother at 68 after welcoming a baby via surrogate with her dead son’s sperm, has opened up about raising the two-year-old.
The socialite, now 70, shocked the world when she welcomed a child in her late 60s.
Months later she revealed the baby, Anita Sandra, was actually her granddaughter and conceived using an egg donor and late son’s frozen sperm.
She said did it to fulfil the final wishes of her son Aless Lequio, who died of cancer in 2022. He had frozen his sperm two years prior.
In an announcement that stunned Spain and made international headlines, Ana told ¡Hola! Magazine: ‘The girl isn’t my daughter, she’s my granddaughter.’
Speaking to Spanish TV this weekend, Ana said her home is now ‘full of stuffed animals and toys’, adding: ‘I even have a little ball pool where she makes me dive in.’
She added that picking Anita up is becoming more difficult as she grows, as it hurts her back.
Speaking of her son Aless’ experience, she explained: ‘We live our whole lives saying that we are eternal and nothing happens here.
‘Suddenly, one day they tell you at 25 years old that you have an aggressive cancer,’.
Aless, whose father is Alessandro Lecquio, the nephew of King Juan Carlos, died at the age of 27 – two years after he was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare type of cancer affecting the bones or the tissue around the bones.
Ana continued: ‘You think, that’s not what they told you when you were little. So I have many more fears [with Ana], more than when I had Aless.’
In a recent interview with ¡Hola! to mark Anita’s second birthday, Ana said she had been ‘dead for three years’ after her son’s death.
However, the arrival of her granddaughter ‘resurrected’ her, she said.
‘I know I’ll never feel the happiness I had when Aless was with me again,’ she told the magazine.
‘That pain will never go away. You don’t accept or get over the death of a child.
‘You end up accepting that you’ll never be able to come to terms with their departure.
‘Fortunately, Anita now fills my days. I was dead for three years from Aless’ death until Anita was born.’
She also spoke about having more fears as Anita gets older, explaining: ‘With Aless, I would go to work confident that everything would be fine.
‘But life has taught me that one day you have a perfectly healthy child, and out of the blue, you’re told he has a very aggressive cancer. Life is a breath of fresh air.’
Ana described Anita as a ‘being of light’, adding: ‘She’s just as intelligent as her dad.
‘She’s always asking me for hugs, but not for herself, but so I can hug those around us.
‘The other day the plumber came.. And I ended up hugging him because she asked me to,’ the actress recalled.
Anita’s arrival caused a stir in Spain where surrogacy is illegal.
However, it is lawful to adopt a child who was born abroad.
After she was born via a surrogate in the US, Anita was adopted by Ana and is legally her daughter.
But Ana faced criticism from those who oppose surrogacy, including Irene Montero, Spain’s equality minister, who branded surrogacy as a ‘form of violence against women’.
Her critical comments were echoed by Presidency Minister Felix Bolaños and Budget Minister Maria Jesus Montero.
‘Women’s bodies should neither be bought nor rented to satisfy anyone’s desires,’ Bolaños said.
But in her most recent comments, Ana dismissed those who criticised her decision to bring up her late son’s child.
‘There are criticisms and judgments. People can be judged, but it’s impossible to live without empathy,’ she said.
‘I believe that when fathers and mothers put themselves in my shoes and in my soul, in my pain… As I say, I was the owner of my pain. Now, I am the owner of my revival.’
Ana Obregon is well known thanks to the controversy surrounding her personal life.
Her son’s father was the nephew of King Juan Carlos – Alessandro Lecquio who was still technically married to model Antonia Dell’Atte when she initially got together with him before their ill-fated relationship which later ended.
In January, the pair have run in again, recently exchanging words after Ana accused Alessandro of never supporting his son financially (claims he denied vigorously). When she was asked how she about her ex-husband due to the arguments over finances, she gave a perhaps unexpected answer.
Ana said: ‘I love Alessandro very much. Look, Alessandro is the father of my son and we will always be united by our son and by the memory of our son and out of respect for our son because our son is what he was most excited about.
‘In any marriage that is separated, the children suffer a lot because they want to see their father with their mother and Aless was most excited to see us together so I know he is watching us, because of him we will always be together,’ she said.
Ana was also asked if Alessandro would ever act like the grandfather to her daughter – also called Ana – she said she would not be speaking about that.
She added that she ‘always respects’ the decisions of those people she loves.
Ana, who has lived in Alcobendas for many years, has experienced an eventful life, after being born in in Madrid in March 1955 to parents Antonio and Ana Garcia.
Although her father eventually made his fortune via his construction company Jotsa, he initially left school at age of 12 and took a job cleaning pigsties.
According to Ana, who has not spoken much about her childhood, it was a happy once, as she once said on Instagram: “I was lucky to have an exceptional, hardworking, loving and demanding father. Thank you dad for opening me and mom the doors of life.’
Ana, who wanted to be an actor – and ended up making her big screen debut when she appeared in Jules Verne’s Mystery on Monster Island at 27 in 1981 – first earned a biology degree at her father’s request.
Her best known acting role is in the 1984 romantic drama Bolero – opposite Bo Derek and George Kennedy, where she played Catalina Bo Derek and George Kennedy.
