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Salvador Dali’s body will be exhumed this week for paternal testing. Wait, what?

On July 20th the artist’s body will be exhumed from its elaborate tomb in his hometown of Figueres, Spain to prove (or not) that he had a daughter. Could this get more surreal?

Pilar Abel, a 58-year-old astrologist and tarot reader from Gerona (Spain) has filed a paternity suit in a Madrid court, claiming she is the daughter of the Spanish artist. Did she see it in the stars?

Anyway, here are the (not so many) facts.

According to Abel, her mother used to work as domestic help for a family who would often vacation in Cadaqués, where Dalí also had a house. The surrealist painter and the young maid became friendly, and their friendship soon developed into an affair, the result of which is allegedly Pilar, who was born in 1956.

It is said that the initial lawsuit included various testimonies of the village neighbours, who all confirmed the fact of the affair.

Pilar started her pursuit for a father a while ago – in 2007 and 2008 she already had some DNA tests done using hair and skin remains from Dalí’s death mask, but the results proved inconclusive.

Interestingly, Abel’s lawyer is Francesc Bueno, who is well known in the Spanish media for having represented Albert Solá, a waiter who filed and lost a paternity suit against Juan Carlos I of Spain, the King of Spain at the time.

Well, that’s one real-life story to follow closely!

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