DNA Tests Prove That One of Spain’s ‘El Cordobés’ Bullfighters Fathered the Other

Simon Lewis
Updated
79-year-old Manuel Benitez has always rejected the claim he fathered a younger matador

DNA evidence presented in a Spanish court appears to prove that a bullfighter is the son of one of the country’s best-known matadors.

Manuel Díaz, 47, has long claimed that he is the offspring of Manuel Benítez, 79, a.k.a “El Cordobés” (a reference to his southern Spanish hometown, Cordova), the BBC reports. But the elder man rejects the claim that he fathered Díaz — who himself became a bullfighter and also uses the name “El Cordobés” — after meeting Díaz’s mother, a maid, at the height of the older man’s popularity in the 1960s.

Díaz, who says he is not seeking financial gain, secured a court hearing after he hired a private detective to obtain a DNA sample from Benítez from a restaurant napkin. When that sample suggested the two “El Cordobés” were father and son, the court conducted its own blood tests, confirming paternity to a 99.9% degree of certainty.

[BBC]