Natalia Barulich, model and artist, confessed in a podcast that during her relationship with Colombian singer Maluma, she couldn’t stop thinking about her ex-girlfriend, a woman with whom she had a secret romance before that relationship began.
The revelation occurred in the episode "Dating Maluma While in Love With a Woman" of the podcast Wrong Sauce, released on Thursday, where Natalia—who goes by the stage name Natalia Marion—appeared alongside Selena Sofia, her first girlfriend and current partner in the musical duo Nat & Stone.
Natalia explained that she met Selena just before her relationship with Maluma became public, and that she fell in love with her at that moment.
However, the pressure from her family and people in the music industry pushed her to keep that relationship a secret and to date men: "Everyone around me was saying: you have to be with a man. And that’s how I fell in love with him, and I always thought about you," she told Selena during the conversation.
The model admitted that, despite having felt genuine love for the singer, her mind constantly returned to her ex-girlfriend: "Even while I was with the man after you, I always thought about you."
According to Natalia, Maluma sensed something: "He would tell me: I think you’re secretly a lesbian. And I would say: me? No." She added: "And then at night, I longed for girls. I longed for you. I cried for you."
Selena Sofia, for her part, described her experience while Natalia was photographed alongside the artist: "I was losing my mind, I'm not going to lie. I was trying with all my might not to look at anything."
Natalia, of Cuban origins, and Maluma met during the filming of the music video for "Felices los 4" in 2017, and their separation was confirmed in October 2019.
After the breakup, Natalia was publicly linked to the footballer Neymar Jr., although she always denied that they were a couple. In July 2020, Maluma released "Hawái", a song that many interpreted as an indirect message to Barulich and the footballer, although the singer denied that it was inspired by specific events.
Natalia explained in the podcast that she dated men because she felt she had no other option: "I dated him too because at that moment I felt I would never be able to have a future with a woman."
She grew up in a conservative Catholic environment where she was taught to suppress her attraction to women, and for many years she followed that directive.
In June 2024, he publicly declared himself pansexual through his social media, a step he described as liberating: "I never thought I would come out of the closet, that I would live for others for the rest of my life. And now I am out and free."
Natalia and Selena had an intermittent relationship for about six or seven years, with around eight breakups and reconciliations, before deciding to be friends and ultimately becoming musical partners under the name Nat & Stone.
The clip of the episode published on TikTok by the podcast garnered over 117,000 views in just a few hours, with hundreds of comments from followers reminiscing about Natalia during the "Felices los 4" era, who couldn’t imagine the story behind that relationship.
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