Carmen Campuzano

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Carmen Campuzano (born December 7, 1970 as Maria del Carmen Campuzano) is a Mexican actress and fashion model.

[edit] Biography

Campuzano met Mario Carballido while she was still a struggling model. The pair got married, but their relationship did not last. Campuzano had twin girls with Carballido, and, after her divorce, she met and befriended Dominican-born Mexican actor Andres Garcia.

Campuzano had her first opportunity to act in 2000, when she participated alongside Osvaldo Rios, among others, in a telenovela. Her acting career suffered after 2000, however.

Campuzano and García eventually became romantically involved. At some point after gaining celebrity, Campuzano allegedly began to use drugs, a rumor that she has neither admitted nor denied. García and Campuzano broke up, but they remained on amicable terms.

Carmen Campuzano accused her former husband, Carballido, of emotionally abandoning their daughters in 2004, soon after Carballido's second wife also became pregnant. This would become the beginning of many controversies in which Campuzano would become involved.

Campuzano apparently became so addicted to drugs that her friend and former boyfriend García stepped in and had her interned in a rehabilitation center. On August 7, 2005, soon after Campuzano had left the rehabilitation clinic, she was spotted on the roof of her friend Sandra's home. Exactly what happened at that moment has been debated; witnesses said that Campuzano, in an apparent panic attack, began to scream for help and that someone wanted to kill her, while she stood naked on her friend's roof. Her friend Sandra did not deny the fact that Campuzano went to her house's roof and began screaming, but she alleges that Campuzano was not naked, and that she only took her clothes off inside Sandra's house, claiming she was not able to breathe. Sandra did say that she was hurt by her friend as she tried to bring Campuzano inside her home.

Campuzano was taken to a nearby hospital by paramedics who were awaiting outside her friend's house as her dramatic situation unfolded. When she was being taken to an ambulance, television cameramen filmed Campuzano. Campuzano sported a rather uncharacteristic (for her), short hair look. This gave some credibility to claims that she made the following days that she had been abused, both physically and sexually, at the rehabilitation center she attended.

Carmen Campuzano was diagnosed as having a cocaine overdose when she arrived at the hospital, which, according to doctors, could have triggered suicidal thoughts in the patient.

After recuperating, Campuzano was referred to a mental institution.

She also had an accident. A taxi ran over her almost killing her. She has had many operations on her face.

She also had an accident in September 2002 where one of her fingers had to be inserted back and her right arm had to be reconstructed.

In March 2004 she had an argument with a men putting a lock in one of her car wheels because she was parking in a forbidden place. When he backed off he was run over by a security van.

Many more incidents can (allegedly) be attributed to this out-of-luck Mexican celebrity. Such as getting infected with flesh-eating bacteria acquired by stepping on pork excrement, losing all cartilage in her nose as a result of such infection, breaking several bones, several times, attempting suicide by swallowing razor knives, being run over by a car while heavily intoxicated and vomiting out of a taxi she rode in with the door open, head hanging outside, as well as allegedly going back to old drug and alcohol habits countless times. Most of these incidents have occurred live on, or have been followed closely by, as they were happening (or soon after) by Mexico's main television networks and print media.

After her last alleged stint at yet another rehabilitation clinic, she is lately performing nightly as a singer at a run-down bar in Mexico City's Insurgentes avenue.

Also, quite interestingly, she has been the butt of a much publicized, semi-black humor joke, in which someone regards anyone in a state of panic, fright, intoxication, or any altered state of mind as someone being "En Carmen". (playing the role of, or acting as, carmen campuzano). One might say to a drunken friend: "Estás en Carmen", meaning he or she is either too drunk, altered, hysterical or plain intolerable (always said as a good-natured joke between good friends). One might also (jokingly) call someone "Carmen". And anyone (and everyone) can, (at one point or another, in a same conversation even) be referred to as "Carmen". This meaning that that person is the focal point of either the conversation, the situation, or both. This joke, in all its versions, has been made popular by a close-knit, influential group of friends who are part of the Mexico City young elite, and who are labeled as "Los Fantásticos" (the fantastic ones), which include Mexican pop star Anahi, Ana Cristina Fox (Mexican president Vicente Fox's daughter), and well-known young Mexican socialites Sergio Gabriel, Claudia Reta, Luis David Castro, Alejandro Bastieri (Mexican singer Luis Miguel's brother), Isaac Sitton, and their friends. New versions of the same joke (and additions to it) have spun off, all deriving from the original, and all now part of Mexican socialite lingo, due to the influential nature of the joke's creators.