Charo has opened up about her husband’s death, revealing she found him in an alley after he shot himself.
Kjell Rasten, who was married to Charo since 1978, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in February, with Charo saying her husband had developed a rare skin disease and depression.
Charo – real name María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza – recalled the tragedy to camera for the first time on The Talk.
Recalling the days prior, Charo – who rose to fame with in the 70s from roles in The Love Boat and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson – said her and Kjell were travelling home from Palm Springs, where she performed.
‘We had dinner, but he did not talk, during the dinner he talked very little,’ she said about the night prior to his death.
‘Then when we went to go to sleep, he looked at me very strange. No clue, no clue at all. The best husband, the best father, the best companion, no clue at all.’
The following day, 18 February, Kjell went to an alley where their gardener put the trimmings, where he took his own life.
His actress wife later found him in the alley.
‘I thought that he fell down,’ she explained. ‘I ran to him because I thought he fell and I hugged him and I was full of blood. My hair was full of blood, like I had a shower of blood.
‘I was screaming to the street, full of blood, and a tour bus called the police and called the ambulance.’
Kjell, 79, was pronounced Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre.
Charo said the policeman explained to her: ‘He did not fall down, he put a bullet in his head. And at that moment, I had a bullet in my heart. But I want to say to everybody if I can, I thank you will all my heart and watch for depression.’
Charo was previously married to bandleader Xavier Cugat from 1966 to 1978, though she claims her marriage was a means for her to legally migrate to the United States from Spain.
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