Torch-song icon, role-model for many a drag queen, and already a huge celeb, but the mother of all controversies recently has helped propel La Pantoja onto the front pages everywhere in the Prensa Rosa, and there was never any doubt that she’d be occupying the top spot in our chart as there is literally no escape from the wall-to-wall coverage. To summarise, she’s another Andalucí­an singer with a big voice and is in a relationship with the disgraced Marbella politician Julián Muñoz, who is currently languishing at His Majesty’s pleasure over a number of dodgy deals. Isabel has now been dragged into the whole sorry affair, and people are interested to know how much she knew about what was going on. She’s had her house raided by the police and had to account for wads of cash that they found stuffed in drawers (apparently, she had €9000 in cash at home that she claims was to cover "daily bills”), and the talk recently was whether she would get to take her new year grapes together with Julián behind bars. Her celeb status is increased yet more by the fact that, she too was once married to our old friend Paquirri (remember him from earlier?) so she receives bonus points for being implicated in the Ordoñez family dynasty. Despite her troubles, the magazines are not being too hard on her, and most of them this week were sympathizing about her needing to wear a bandage after a minor foot operation. Good old Isabel isn’t letting her troubles get in her way though, and she’s currently on stage in Madrid dressed, as usual, like a ship in full sail and belting out her tunes at top note. Here she is practicing pronouncing her "errays” (just like me!) singing Arrepentimiento:

Dave Hall lives and works in Barcelona. Click here for the entire celeb top 10!