Proto Thema Greek Newspaper - By Romina Xyda
Tom Cruise and Selma Fonseca
Mini skirt with sequins, Brazilian body, long black hair, scintillating look, two words in Greek only: "Agape me", (translation “My love”). Me at twelve, she at fourteen. It looks so different from the girls I know, and this mini skirt with the sequins I feel in my subconscious a little jealousy and admiration ... We sit in the living room. Our mums are preparing for a party. I'm ashamed to tell her to play and substitute the age difference with a big receptive smile. They will tell me the small, the big ones are ready for their evening out. Something is asking her mom and then she moans from the answer: "No Selma cannot come with us at the party!" We both stay. My conspiracy winks, the smile there, like crying "Why do not we have fun too? Come and see what we do! "
Paris Hilton and Selma Fonseca
We open drawers with clothes, treasure jewels from small trunks, we balance on unsuitable furs, apply makeup on our cheeks and lips, the hair better left down touching the shoulder and back. We open the door and go out to the living room. A Pina Colada Pump in water glasses for effects, an ocean of music on the dance floor, and that "Agape Mou" enough to unite two teenage worlds that have been lost to being reunited nearly three decades afterwards in a Glyfada restaurant ...
Sao Paulo-Athens-New York
When Selma arrives in Greece from San Paulo, Brazil, along with the beautiful Greek mother, Antonia Varzakakou, she is only fourteen years old. She speaks no language other than Portuguese, she has no fear of adapting to her new reality: "I was born in Brazil by a native of Sparta and Brazilian father. When my parents broke up, mom decided to return to her hometown. I really wanted to come to Greece, in Brazil I was supposed to get married and have a lot of children. I was another child, I did not want to have this life. I wanted to travel, to meet people, to have fun, to live," says Selma, and continues: " When we landed in Greece it was winter. We stayed in a lovely house in the neighborhood of Psychiko and in six months I learned the language. Greece then looked like a dream. During the summers I spent in Mykonos, Skiathos and Santorini, the winters looked like summers ... I decided to study architecture while helping my mother in a store she had in Kifissia. Happy years, carefree and happy. I stayed in Greece until I was eighteen. A trip to New York to see a Brazilian girlfriend from school and the ensuing love with her brother kept me there” ...
Somehow, the leisure trip in NY turns the last to a permanent base of the eighteen-year-old, then Selma, who cancels the return ticket for Greece one night and without a second thought: "If we do not cancel a ticket for a love, then we have not lived anything," he laughs. I stay with Tuta and three months later I returned to Greece to pick up my stuff. But shortly before I board the plane to New York, Tuta called me to say, "It's better to split. Do not come…". I was crying a lot but no hesitation. A man cannot cut our wings. I wanted to fly for New York and I flew ... And imagine that then I was not even speaking English ... When I arrived there, I made an appointment with someone familiar with my mother, owner of one of NY's most famous jewelry atelier. I asked him for a job, he gave me with the condition of attending a school. I worked, I was studying jewelry design, I was with Tuta again. We stayed together for five years ... My next love was Pele "
Pele and Selma Fonseca at his birthday party in New York City
Love with Pele and the short marriage
While looking on her cell phone to find a photo with Pele, I am thinking the life of the naughty girl with the "broken" Greek could not be very different. How do you decide to do it before you even realize it: "Yes! Look! Here we are with Pele in a New York restaurant. We stayed together for almost a year. He was a super gentleman, a giant of the ball with the little child's heart. I remember the first time he wanted to come to my house, a hole in New York ... When he realized I was ashamed, he turned to me and said, "Are you serious? I was born in the huts and the palaces even after they hosted me afterwards, those bells are my home! " No, it's not easy to relate to a myth like Pele. Behind me I did not only have a man but a whole world that is difficult to "pick up", especially if you are a kid. Pele wanted to marry and have children, I did not even listen to it. That's how we split up and after a year I started going out with a Jewish jeweler who was besieging me for many months. We got married, but David was facing a serious drug problem. She lost the drug battle and died one year after our marriage, followed by a fight in court with my in-laws, I fell into depression until one day, when I turned thirty years old, I decided to give a big party along with the promise to myself that I would no longer be sad. And there, life began to smile again ... "
From the jewelry houses on the red carpet of the Oscar
After the recovery and a short trip to Brazil, Selma gets a job as a manager at the well-known New York Jewelry House “FRAGMENTS.” She knows people, and one night she goes to a Britney Spears party celebrating her eighteen years: "That night, I took some pictures and then some friends advised me to sell them to the magazines. I got very good money and I thought, "What a great job this is, I'm going to a party, I drink for free and then I make money and that's what I want to do!".
From "I want" to "I can", you usually have to cover a long distance. For Selma, however, this distance always seemed to be equivalent to smoking a cigarette, (a Greek expression meaning whatever I do I do it fast): "In 1999 I decided to go to the Vanity Fair party at the MORTONS restaurant in West Hollywood. I had no invitation, I didn’t even know how I was going to get in. As I stood outside on the street with police officers and bodyguards I saw Gwyneth Paltrow, who had won an Academy Award for Shakespeare In Love, out of a limo holding the gold statuette in hand. Within a fraction of a second I found myself beside her implying that I am a member of her team. We went to the outside of MORTONS, she stopped, the flashlights flashed, I froze! My goal has not yet been achieved. I see two guys at the entry of MORTONS. I put my attitude cap on, I looked up high - in such cases you never look at the other in the eyes - and the door opened! I took a shot of vodka to calm down and then I took a picture with Gwyneth, I met Mariah Carey, Tony Curtis, Ashton Kutcher, Marisa Tomei, Andy Garcia and Kate Blanchett, I had fun with my soul, I sold the pictures to publications and decided that this would be my job. Very difficult and incredibly nice."
From 1999 to 2009, Selma manages to be always on the famous Vanity Fair party, starting a collaboration with New York Daily News where she wrote gossip for Rush & Molloy Column and from 2010 she decides to share her time between News York and Los Angeles making strong PR relationships which ensure invited entrance to the most famous parties on the planet.
Lisa Parigi, Selma Fonseca and Lionel Richie celebrating Christmas
The unique Lionel Richie, sour Jennifer Aniston and two unique books
Michael Jackson, Ben Affleck, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Paris Hilton, Michael Douglas, Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, Lionel Richie, Leonardo DiCaprio, are just some of the people that Selma immortalized with her camera. Some of them became friends such as Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, her favorite: "Michael was a kid, he had even invited me to his father's birthday at Neverland. The most beautiful guy, my biggest weakness is Lionel Richie. We are friends for twenty years and what I admire in him besides his talent is his simplicity. He speaks to everyone, rich, poor, famous, not famous ... He loves Greece and Mykonos and gives the most beautiful Christmas parties. Another big Star is Tom Cruise, the only celebrity who really respects his audience. Hot people are Al Pacino, Brad Pitt and Robert Pattinson. On the contrary, DiCaprio is a very cold person and always comes out with a hat in order to be outside the field of view of others. Cold and sour I would call Jennifer Aniston. I remember saying to her: "Oh, you are a Greek woman like me!" And she answered: "I'm sorry I do not speak Greek". What is the nicest celebrity? Paris Hilton, I would say. She has incredible humor, she is smart, fun, great and very gentle."
Over the past five years, Selma has been working as a journalist in the music business at billboard magazine, by interviewing celebrities such as Yoko Ono, Republic and DJ Steve Aoki, and is currently in talks with NY publishers to publish her memoir book titled #NoOneStopsSelma full of spicy stories from the stars and a photo book with photographs of the biggest stars on the planet from Vanity Fair, Elton John and Miramax Parties: "The book is already available at SelmaFonseca.com from where one can also buy several pictures of the biggest stars of the planet, "she tells me shortly before we sat goodbye, comes to my mind the first image I had of her: a girl with a mini skirt of sequins, a Brazilian body, long black hair and a sparkling look. She understands it, embraces me and farewell to me with a lovely "Agape Mou" ..
https://www.protothema.gr/life-style/article/906841/h-ellinida-pou-magepse-ton-mago-tis-balas/
"#NoOneStopsSelma A Memoir by Selma Fonseca Cover page
Oscar Parties - Vanity Fair, Elton John and Miramax Celebrity Photographs - by Selma Fonseca Cover