SANTIAGO, CHILE (AP) - Don Francisco says he got a breakfast surprise Wednesday morning: a 43-year-old man wants to call him “papa.”
The 70-year-old host of Univision’s Miami-based Sabado Gigante show, whose real name is Mario Kreutzberger, says he’s seeking legal help in Chile in response to the paternity claim, which was quietly filed last October and only surfaced Wednesday in La Cuarta, a Chilean newspaper.
“Today in the morning I learned in the media of this supposed paternity demand against me,” Kreutzberger said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “I’m seeking legal help in Chile to analyze the existence of this supposed demand and according to that, will take the necessary steps.”
The plaintiff, identified only as Patricio Abraham F., doesn’t want money from the TV host, just a DNA test to determine his parentage, the man’s lawyer, Boris Paredes, told Radio Cooperativa.
Paredes said his client is a small businessman without economic problems, and noted that if the paternity test shows no relation, the talk show host will have the right to claim compensation from the man.
The man’s mother allegedly got to know Kreutzberger when she worked in a bakery and as a domestic servant in 1967, when, after various encounters, they spent a night together. Patricio was born that December.
According to La Cuarta, the man only learned of his supposed connection to Kreutzberger last June, when his mother was seriously ill and fearing death, confessed to him about the encounter.
Paredes said a court officer failed to reach Kreutzberger in Miami to inform him of the lawsuit, which has a February hearing in a family court in Santiago.
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AP staff writer Gisela Salomon contributed to this story from Miami.
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