Save me celebrates its 14th anniversary of broadcast, today, April 27. One of the most controversial programs on the television schedule celebrates its anniversary, but it does so wrapped in a melancholic aura. All the collaborators and presenters of Sálvame agree on something: the program has not been the same since the departure of Mila Ximénez. And it is that she herself is the protagonist of this celebration.
The set, which bears her name, will witness a tribute to one of the most warlike and charismatic collaborators on television. Mila has left a void for her fellow program members, who are still visibly affected two years after her death on June 23, 2021, at the age of 69.
"No matter what happens, and whatever it is, I will always be on my feet. I have character, joy, friends, functionality and a great desire to live," Mila Ximénez confessed during the treatment she received for lung cancer. . To tell the truth, she was in a very happy stage in her life, surrounded by her daughter, her granddaughter and her brothers. But she didn't always have it easy.
Seville saw Milagros Ximénez de Cisneros Rebollo born on May 21, 1952, in the cradle of a family that offered her the best of childhoods. Happy and pampered, being the youngest of four siblings, she Mila began to study Journalism, without finishing it. Shortly after, she went to work at the Nuestra Señora del Rocío hospital in Seville, where she managed to enter thanks to her father's contacts. The union that she had with her parents was so great that her deaths in 2008 and 2009 left her collaborator strongly touched.
Although Mila Ximénez had several partners before, without a doubt, meeting Manolo Santana, whom she married in 1983 in the Villalba court, marked her life forever. After three years, they decided to end their marriage because of an infidelity by the tennis player that one of her friends witnessed. However, not everything was negative in this relationship. As a result of her short but intense love, Alba Santana was born, the only daughter of the collaborator.
The journalist has always spoken highly of her daughter, although she did more of her two grandchildren, Alexander and Victoria. But her relationship with her eldest daughter was not always entirely easy. After her separation with Santana, Mila had to give up custody of Alba in order to give her a better life. “She offered me the greatest proof of love that a mother can offer: she gave me up so that I would have a future. And she did it with all her love and broken with her pain, ”said Alba Santana in an interview for Hello!.
Her break with Santana and, consequently, her absence as a mother, was marked, to a large extent, by the life she led in Marbella during those years. During her relationship, the collaborator rubbed shoulders with the jet setters of the city on the Costa del Sol, which made her get contacts in the highest spheres. Her nightlife in Marbella ended up causing serious problems for Ximénez that she even confessed to losing her memory. "I don't remember exactly how I got in or how I got out, but I do remember that during them there was not a single moment when I was happy," she admitted.
After these whirlwind years, and after having to abandon her daughter, Mila fell into a dark pit from which it was difficult for her to get out. Economic problems and hardships surrounded the life of the journalist during the following years. "Sometimes she didn't even have to pay for the electricity and she wanted the best for me," said her daughter. Luckily for both of them, when Alba came of age, they recovered a relationship that lasted until the last hours of Ximénez.
Shortly after, he managed to set foot in the journalistic world at ABC and COPE, at the hands of Encarna Sánchez, another of the people who would mark the life of Mila Ximénez, who would go from great mutual affection to enmity for the eternity. Although the collaborator always denied it, there were many hints of a possible relationship between the two of them. Of course, one of the loves of her life, and secret, was, without a doubt, the businessman Rafael Aguilera. José Sacristán or Antonio Arribas, join her love story.
After a break in her professional career, Mila Ximénez returned in the 2000s and signed for Telecinco. In this chain she spent the rest of her career collaborating on programs such as Crónicas Marcianas, TNT, A tu lado and La noria, until her arrival in the Sálvame universe.
Mila Ximénez managed to adapt perfectly to the Sálvame program, so much so that she became one of the essentials. Thanks to the popularity that she garnered due to her warrior way of being, she ended up participating in the two most important reality shows on Telecinco, Survivientes and Big Brother VIP, where she, despite repeatedly wanting to quit, came in third place. .
The last years of his life, he spent with those who became his great friends. Jorge Javier Vázquez, Kiko Hernández, Belén Esteban, Terelu Campos, María Patiño, Lydia Lozano and Kiko Matamoros, among others, fondly remember her partner, assuring on several occasions that they have not been able to overcome the duel. A memory that will remain in the memory of all of them and of the viewers and television lovers themselves.
