Mexico’s First Lady, former soap opera star Angelica Rivera, has recorded a videotaped statement explaining that she has “nothing to hide” regarding her purchase of a luxury mansion held in the name of a firm that was involved in the awarding of a 4.3-billion-dollar high-speed rail contract.
“I have worked my whole life, and thanks to that I am an independent woman,” Rivera said in the statement.
She explained that she agreed to purchase the house in 2012 for four million dollars (54 million pesos), paying off the capital over eight years, with a nine percent interest rate. Up until now, Rivera said she has paid 14.3 million pesos.
The company that holds the property, Grupo Higa, was part of the Chinese-led consortium that had hoped to build the planned high-speed rail network between Mexico City and Queretero. The Mexican government suddenly cancelled the deal just before television news journalist Carmen Aristegui broke the story of the mansion.
Rivera enjoyed a 25-year career with broadcaster Televisa, taking lead roles in more than a dozen telenovelas. Her income in 2010 was almost 90 million pesos, she said. She put her acting career on hold when her husband Enrique Peña Nieto ran for president in 2012.
Rivera said that she is prepared to sell the house so the issue would not “continue being a pretext to offend and defame my family.”
The First Lady’s statement sought to defuse a potential scandal that seemed to be compounding the problems of Enrique Peña Nieto, who faces the severest crisis of his presidency following the disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guererro in September.
Rivera’s explanatory video, which was posted on YouTube, generated a slew of parodies that are chalking up the hits on social media sites.