The triumph of Diego Santilli as deputy for LLA in PBA (10/26/2025) rekindled the rift with his ex, Nancy Pazos. In Olga’s streaming, Pazos was blunt: “I didn’t want him to do well,” he called him a “strange human being” and accused Santilli of turning his three children – Nicanor, Teo and Tonio – into libertarians: “They are quite libertarians… the father is a candidate, they are very influenced by a cruel vision of mileism,” he said. After the elections, in “A la Barbarossa” he reiterated that he would not congratulate him and that he was “terrified” of that ideology. The eldest son, Nicanor (TC2000 driver), responded on Instagram: “Withstanding the blows even from people we least expected it from… It is a pride to call you my dad. We love you,” with photos of the celebration. Pazos minimized: “He is a divine boy, he is not against me.”
In the book “Juliana”, by whom this is written, the incredible behind-the-scenes story of the fight and separation between them is told. Below is an excerpt from the book:
The time has come to narrate what in the PRO is considered a “witness case” of how Juliana Awada exercises her power in the shadows. It is the story of Diego Santilli and his ex-partner, the famous journalist Nancy Pazos. Two of the protagonists of the events spoke for the book “Juliana” on the condition that they were not identified as sources of the information.
It is already known that the plot ended in a scandalous separation, but it is worth starting with how it started.
Santilli, today second in the City Government, is one of the historical macristas who accompanied the boss from his beginnings. When, looking ahead to 2011, he said that he would love to “be head of government,” thinking that Macri would compete in the presidential elections and leave that box free, the alarms in the PRO rang.
Juliana, now almost Mauricio’s wife, told him what she thought: that behind that move was the ambitious Nancy Pazos. Santilli alone could not have been able to launch himself into that challenge, and even less so without consultation.
Macri listened to her, thoughtful.
Between Awada and Pazos there was definitely no vibe. The first could not stand the strident style of the second: Nancy gave her opinion on all the topics, she never kept quiet, she even dared to argue hand in hand with Mauricio and give him advice in front of others.
Unbearable for Juliana.
In those days, on “Nicky” Caputo’s birthday, the boss told Santilli:
–I want you in Pilar, as mayor.
Confining his official to that wild municipality in the northern part of the suburbs was a brutal way to calm him down.
When Nancy heard the offer from Santilli, she became furious:
–But you didn’t spit in his face? You are the third here, behind “Gaby” Michetti who does not exist and Larreta…
Santilli days later communicated his refusal to the boss and explained that he was ready for more. At that time he was his Minister of Environment and Public Space and had a notable presence in the media, a product of the skill and agenda of his journalist wife.
Macri reluctantly accepted the “no.”
Shortly after they met again, this time the four of them: Santilli and Nancy against Mauricio and Juliana. It was at a dinner that the minister organized with a group of merchants from the northern area of the suburbs, in a restaurant in Belgrano, on Libertador Avenue. The dinner had started without Macri, who arrived shortly after with his wife.
“Hello, Diego,” he greeted his official.
And then Juliana spoke:
–Ah, hello, how is the man who is outgrowing Pilar doing?
Santilli ignored the poisonous comment.
His wife was paralyzed.
Awada was aware of the smallest details. And it took its toll without losing her charming smile.
Nancy recently told a friend:
–In their heads, I was the one who had refused to let Diego go to Pilar.
He also concluded:
–Macri loves employees, not allies. And I worked for Santilli, not for him. It seemed unmanageable to him.
The journalist said that she had never seen any first lady handle her power “in such a feminine way” as Awada, without going into the clash, as men did, but from behind the scenes.
–She is divine –he praised her before his friend–. Of course, it lacks pedigree.
The meetings between the two couples, which at the beginning of Macri and Juliana’s relationship were frequent, began to become less frequent.
And one day, Macri told Santilli:
–Please, don’t bring it to your wife anymore.
It was a request from Awada.
For years Santilli and his wife had been his permanent guests in his Barrio Parque apartment. But that was until Juliana showed up.
And the minister and the journalist had given the first lady of Buenos Aires a beautiful black English-style bicycle, with leather on the handlebars, just like the one she had praised them when she was at their house. The detail did not seem to sensitize her.
Santilli and the marginalized Nancy separated in March 2013, when he packed his bags and left the apartment they shared with their three children.
Shortly before the outcome, Santilli had a revealing meeting with Macri. There are two versions of how the talk went.
–What problem do you have with Nancy? –Santilli asked him in the version that he transmitted to his then wife.
“Look, I don’t want to get involved,” the boss advanced. But it seems to me that the best thing for you would be to be with a woman who talks to you about other things when you get home, who listens to you, who makes home relaxing…
According to that version, Santilli responded:
–Mauricio, I knew Nancy like that. I appreciate your concern, but she helps me.
The second version is the one that Santilli himself confided to some friends:
–Mauricio was a great advisor to me during the separation. It was my first, he already had three…
In that second version, the official seems more receptive to the boss’s advice. Which was, of course, the same advice as Awada.
During those same days, Marcos Peña, much more unknown than today, contacted Pazos via email and asked for a meeting without specifying the reason.
She reacted to Santilli:
–He’s a moron, he should ask your permission if he wants to see me.
Once the formality was completed, the journalist and the official saw each other. The diligent Peña, by order of his superiors, tried to steer the conversation towards what Nancy intended to do with Santilli’s career. She, amused, entertained herself by talking about Macrismo in general and her boss Mauricio in particular.
“All that talk was nonsense,” a witness to the uncomfortable meeting told me.
There was another moment of tension before the end and it was at the wedding party of Augusto Rodríguez Larreta, the brother of Horacio, the current mayor of Buenos Aires. In those days of October 2012, the PRO was convulsed because “Gaby” Michetti had just said “no” to Macri, who wanted her to be a candidate for governor in the province of Buenos Aires. Already by then the current vice president was indomitable.
At the party, Nancy Pazos intercepted the snubbed boss:
–Mauricio, one question and I’ll leave you alone. What did you say to “Gaby” after the “no”?
Macri wanted to evade her:
–No, I already knew. Everyone does what they want.
Pazos stood firm:
–Sometimes you have to go down line, not that everyone does what they want. I mean, if you want to be President.
Macri said with a zen tone:
–If I have to arrive, I arrive… If not, I have Antonia, Juliana…
“Don’t say that, you’re discouraging us terribly,” Nancy got angry. My husband gets up every day at 6 in the morning to make you President and you say that…
–Do you mean that I arrived where I am by chance? –Macri ironically.
–Not by chance. With everything else destroyed. You have to convince your leaders – the journalist continued prodding him.
–Well, Nancy… –the boss tried to get her off of him.
She proposed:
–If you want, one day we can get together and talk about it well. But I’m going to speak to you as Nancy Pazos, not as Santilli’s wife.
Macri smiled with a generous gesture:
–Yes, it is very clear to me that you are you. What is not clear to me is if Santilli when he speaks is Santilli or if it is you…
-Did you know? –Nancy exploded–. You are a son of a bitch. Bye, I’m going to dance with the best guy at the party, who is my husband.
It was the last time they spoke.
Two weeks later, Santilli went to a meeting at the house of “Nicky” Caputo, Macri’s other self, and it took him longer than necessary to return. He arrived at his apartment at dawn, and with a very serious expression.
“After that night he was no longer the same with me,” Pazos told a friend.
His argument with Macri at the wedding party had precipitated everything.
In August 2013, the noisy separation was finalized when Santilli – already moved – appeared with a sensual model, Analía Maiorana.
The model happily told the magazine People:
–We are both single, it is not a sin!
A year later they got married.
What Nancy Pazos did not know until today is that among the friends of the model who came to replace her there is a very special one, with whom the new girlfriend had known her for a long time.
It’s Juliana.
Santilli himself told me:
–Analía knew Juliana before. Also to other friends of Mauricio, Gustavo Arribas and Martín Seefeld, the actor.
But he didn’t release any more information than that.
He did say, however, that with Maiorana he had returned to dinner at the Macri apartment, where his ex was prohibited from entering.
His career resumed a promising course.
He is married to a friend of Juliana’s, and not to an impertinent journalist whom the Macris – that is, the one who persuades and the one who believes he is in charge – consider a nuisance.
Had Awada, Maiorana’s friend, served as matchmaker?
Better not to guess.
by Franco Lindner
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