Less than 24 hours after having to give up one of his greatest dreams, to participate in ‘Look Who Dances All Stars’, exclusively, from his room, in the midst of pain, Gabriel Coronel confesses: “It’s a downturn and it makes me very sad.”
Gabriel has stolen the hearts of his public not only for being handsome, but for his simplicity, his gift as a good person, and learning from falls to get up stronger. With this third-grade sprain that was done while rehearsing for the Univision reality show and having tried to dance at the second gala, he knows that he has one of the most difficult tests ahead of him of his career and his life: spend hours resting and staring at the ceiling, intense pain, ice, treatments and your world stopped for a while.
But he is willing to stand up with more force and for that he makes, through us, a promise to his audience that you will be able to read or listen to the end of his own mouth in the video.
-Short the trip, but for the trip to be longer, why did you decide it was time to take care of your health?
Gabriel Colonel: What a good phrase, you started this interview with the summary of what my life has been all these last 2 weeks… I understood that we have to think about the future, we are still building a path, a careersowing seeds for a better future, and part of that growth is understand that there are rocks in your path that are going to make you fallliteral, and that you should get up, making smart decisions is the best I can have right now.
Understanding that I have great faith that life will continue to give me opportunities to connect with millions of people, and such a beautiful audience that supports me, but that for that I need to be 100% to deliver everything as I do in each step. It hurt me a lot to make the decision, but it was also a decision made, as I said, thinking of the public. The responsibility of us, as artists, is always to deliver a good show, and I’m not ready to do it, I don’t have the capacity, so I have no choice but to leave.
–Let’s start from the beginning, we saw you at the first gala injured, at first they couldn’t know exactly what had happened to you because it was very swollen, what is the diagnosis?
Gabriel Colonel: The diagnosis so far is a third degree sprain, and it is when the ligaments that join the bones, which give that flexibility, break. There are 3 main ligaments and there are 2 of them that are already broken, not 100%, but cracked. There was no fracture, a couple of doctors, because the truth is, I have seen several, they have told me that sometimes it is even better to fracture and repair the bone, before having this type of injurybut he tells me that I can get out of this 100% with a lot of care and therapies. It’s like very exhausting day to day, because it requires you, first to have the leg all the time up, then it forces you to lie down, at restFor someone who is very demanding of life, well, being at rest, I swear, is very challenging. Secondly, putting ice on it every hour, going to therapy every day and yes raising awareness. There is a lot of pain, inflammation, the foot is all bruised, but well, it is part of what it is.
-When you decide to continue towards the second gala, was it your responsibility or was it approved that you could do it?
Gabriel Colonel: I definitely wouldn’t do anything if the doctor doesn’t give me some authorization, the channel won’t let me do anything if they don’t have an authorization from the doctor… What happened, it was so swollen the first week, that the MRI could not be done, which is the X-ray, as my foot was quite mobile and fixed, they told me that I could move it but with careeither.
The music starts, you see the lights, the stage, you live as a true artist has to live it, and it is fully and totally delivered, Leaving conscience a little aside, which shouldn’t happen, what happened happened. I think I pushed myself too hard, the channel told me… I think I went a little crazy, in the sense that health comes first, then nothing there I said: “Look Gabriel, I know how you demand yourself, I know what you are, so the best thing is to make this decision”.
-What did you feel at the moment when you turn around and feel the pain that tells you: we’ve come this far?
Gabriel Colonel: It was a tension, it was a jolt that hit me from the ankle to the top, the leg, everything, and there I stayed tenseand it was for me like a blow, a scream, I said: No, stop, that is, to what extent, I understand the greatness of the show or the opportunity to be there and the desire I have to be there, but there are definitely many other more important things, which are health and we all know it.
-It is also a message for the public that you have to know how to stop, even if you are at the most desired moment.
Gabriel Colonel: The body is very wise, and sometimes you don’t want to listen to it, but really when you appreciate and learn to listen to your body, I think you will do much better in lifeand not only to one as an artist, it happens to any person who works in an office and is stressed for hours and hours and the body speaks to you in a thousand ways… You have to learn to listen to it and here the body was telling me: “No you can more, relax”…
I think that in the end he was left with the satisfaction of having tried it a second weekand that things have not happened, I think that a very positive result for me also in terms of effort and claws, I think that in the end the message that one is giving is that you can give yourself the opportunity to try, you can make an effort, but if it is no longer, the best thing is that you learn to say noeither.
-You are already out of the competition for a brave decision, to put your health first. Now that you know that cycle is over, what do you think?
Gabriel Colonel: It gives me a down it’s a big drop, there are many things that happen. I am a very spiritual person who understands that life is more than what we see in the present, that we are souls, that we come to grow and have great learning and there is an infinite world there.
I am 100% sure that what happened to me is a much bigger message, it is a message about something that I am going to find out in the future, I don’t know if right now, tomorrow or in 10 years, that is where the answer comes from, but sometimes clinging to that, without living the duel and the process of this rupture, is not easy, definitely for me to be left out of a competition or a project that was going to be 2 months full of work, growth, learning, sharing with colleagues who are in such a tasty crew, like Univision. I say it very properly, not because I want to look good with the channel, but really they are my family and we have been planting a very spectacular family group for 3 years and being out of there, I swear it gives me a hangoverlike a very great sadness.
That process of not only stopping doing that, but get into bed and be there looking at the ceiling, also in another process of experiencing pain… I don’t want to be strong, when it really affects me sentimentally, indeed it was a downturn, it makes me very sad. I have people around me who fill me with a lot of optimism, I have a brand called Vidaconsumes me a lot and makes me very happy, we brought out a new product called Stress and Anxiety, which I think is the one I have to take right now, literally, but if you feel down about having to leave such a project nice as this.
–Before this you took some time to cultivate your spirit abroad, do you think that if this had happened to you before all that spiritual journey you did, you would have taken it the same?
Gabriel Colonel: No, not at all, I would not have had the calm and peace that I could have had in this process. My colleagues tell me, the production team, that they saw a person who learned to value spaces, who learned to demand himself to give respect to the publicor, to surrender with his companions. More than one told me, “What a gentleman the way you assumed and left, the words you say”… Others told me, “I would have been pissed off, I would have been super upset, I would have left, I would have caused drama, not at all.”
Gabriel Coronel is now a person who, thanks to that spiritual growth and that journey of personal encounter and personal growth, has become a person who has learned to value spaces. Learn to grasp greatness, greatness from smallness, I think that makes you much bigger. I am an artist who at every moment has understood that life is too long for one to live and continue to grow, so I have no choice but to get out of this great drama and problem, go out through the big door and with my chest held highknowing that more wonderful things will come in the future.
–What do you tell the public that on the one hand they will miss you and on the other they can see that a successful person, whom they admire, who also falls and finds a way to get up?
Gabriel Colonel: You hit the nail on the head and stole my message, I think my message to the public is to understand that we are human, it is that they value the human side of everything we live, day to day. We are not intangible we are not unbreakable, we are people with sensitivities, with cracks, with mistakes, with this humanity that builds us, and it is what I have always tried to connect with my audience. Being a very transparent person, very honest, that he wants me to value him for the falls and especially for the ones he got up. Now it is a commitment and I tell all my audience: I have a commitment to you to return to a new project, to a new path with much more strength and that they say there it is, there is my horse, there is my Gaby giving everything, and leaving us high.
I already have 15 years of career where I have lived in many countries, I have done cinema, television, theater, series, movies, music, driving, and they have seen a human being growso my audience is a family, that we have grown up together, that was always there for them, to give them my truth, so that they accompany me and know that there is a warrior giving everything… Tell them that thank you for believing in me for this project, and that here you have a human being who is going to give everything to continue giving you art..
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