This new Netflix star is Spanish nobility—and Enrique Iglesias’ sister

Tamara Falcó has a title: “La marquesa de Griñón.” She has a castle: El Rincón. She has 1.3 million followers on Instagram, her own fashion line, and a pop-up restaurant, opening later this month. She also has a new Netflix reality series, “Lady Tamara,” that documents her glamorous life.

Singer Julio Iglesias is a father figure to her, and his singer son, Enrique Iglesias, is her half-brother. She’s one of the most photographed women in her native Spain, with more than 50 covers of Hola magazine under her designer belt.

She’s as famous as Kim Kardashian in Spain but virtually unknown in the U.S.

Which is okay with Falcó. The 40-year-old Marquesa has never chased the limelight; it just kept getting thrust on her. She even tried to escape it a few times — first to America as an adolescent, and later to a nunnery.

Falcó says growing up away from the spotlight allowed her to find her own personality.Getty Images

“My family never understood that,” Falcó told The Post of her religious turn in her late 20s. Faith “was not something that was a priority in our lives growing up.”

Both her parents went through multiple divorces, and her mother — the Spanish-Filipina socialite Isabel Preysler, considered the most fashionable woman in Spain — in particular, “felt kind of rejected by the [Catholic] church,” Falcó said.

Announcing that she was contemplating donning a habit was the most shocking thing Falcó could do. “It was like, ‘You’ve gone too far,’” she recalled of her family’s reaction. 

Julio Iglesias was wed to Falcó’s mother before Falcó was born, but she considers him an extra father figure.Bettmann Archive

Now, the Madrid-based chef-designer-influencer has accepted and even embraced, a fabulous fate — zooming about on the back of her investor boyfriend’s motorcycle and wearing Carolina Herrera and Chanel frocks on red carpets; posing for ad campaigns and attending splashy parties.

“I went to a couple of convents and spoke with the sisters there, but I didn’t feel it was my place,” Falcó explained. Still, she does prefer to “stay at home and pray the rosary” rather than “go out and have seven drinks.” 

Plus, she’s pretty good at navigating this fame thing and has used her popularity to launch several passion projects, from designing dresses to publishing a book of family recipes to opening her own restaurant at the castle she inherited from her father, who died in 2020 of COVID.

Iglesias (holding young Falcó) is the actual father of her half-siblings Julio Jr. (far left), Enrique, and Chabeli. Cover/Getty Images

“For me, my mother has always been a reference in that aspect,” Falcó said, adding that she watched Preysler elegantly weather slander, threats, and constant surveillance throughout her life “She was able to teach all her kids to be aware, to always to have good friends, to handle [fame].”

Tamara Falcó was born in Madrid on Nov. 20, 1981. She posed for her first Hola magazine cover just hours after her birth, with her smiling parents, socialite Preysler and aristocrat Carlos Falcó.

Preysler — a noted beauty and former journalist — had already achieved fame after marrying her first husband, singer Julio Iglesias, with whom she had three children. Marquess Falcó had two children from a previous marriage as well. Tamara would be their only child together; they split by the time she was 4. (Preysler later married socialist politician Miguel Boyer and had another daughter with him; she’s been in a relationship with author Mario Vargas Llosa since 2015.)

The Netflix series follows Falcó in an attempt to turn her father’s castle, El Rincón, into a pop-up restaurant.Rubén Gray

Over the years, Hola chronicled that, and much more, covering little Tamara’s baptism, vacations, birthdays, travels, holidays, illnesses, and, later, romances. 

“When I was a kid, I didn’t really mind it,” Falcó told The Post. “Being around my brothers and sisters [who were used to the press] made it easier, and I really looked up to my mom.” 

Her life was a whirlwind of skiing in Saint Moritz, Paris Fashion Week shows, and hanging out with princes and princesses at palaces

Falcó says she’s in talks with Netflix for another season to focus on different parts of her life.Netflix

Still, she couldn’t help but see the toll all that attention took on the family. Preysler’s children with Iglesias — Chabeli, Julio Jr., and Enrique — used to live with the Falcós, until a Basque terrorist group kidnapped their grandfather and asked the famous singer for a ransom.

“My mother was scared that [the children] were going to be kidnapped,” Falcó, who was around 3 at the time, recalled. “So it was decided to send them abroad,” to live with their father in Miami. “That was a really hard time for all of us because we were used to always being together.”

When she was 15, Falcó asked if she could go to boarding school in America. “When you’re a teenager, you kind of want to be like everyone else,” she said. For her, that meant living in a place without paparazzi.

When Netflix approached to do the show Falcó said, “It took me a while to say yes, because it [required] exposing myself a lot, and that’s always difficult.” Netflix

She enrolled in a high school in Western Massachusetts and later studied communications at Lake Forest College in Illinois. “No one knew me, so I was really able to develop my personality. … It really shocked me when I came back to Spain, the number of people talking about me and the attention,” she said.

Falcó eventually landed an internship at Inditex, which owns Zara, and later got into fashion design. She had always loved clothes. “I remember my mother getting dresses made in this atelier [in Spain] that had all the patterns from Valentino, and I loved going with her,” Falcó recalled. “I used to go down to where the seamstresses were and spend time with them. They would make dresses for my Barbies.” 

Plus, she didn’t just want to be a socialite. “I was really tired of being exposed,” she said. So, she decided to make her name work for her. She launched a fashion company, TFP by Tamara Falcó, became an Instagram influencer, and competed on the TV show “MasterChef Celebrity España,” which led her to study cooking at Le Cordon Bleu. 

Falcó competed on the TV show “MasterChef Celebrity España,” which led her to study cooking at Le Cordon Bleu. Getty Images

“I’ve been blessed because I have control over my life and how it’s presented,” Falcó said, comparing her opportunities with ones her mother didn’t have. “When she was brought up, it was more about getting married, being a good wife.”

She said that Preysler was once approached to appear in a film but she had to turn it down. “Her husband at the time said, ‘No, you can’t do that,’ so she didn’t do it … I grew up in a different time for women and that has allowed me a lot more liberty.”

When Netflix approached Falcó in 2021 about starring in her own reality show, she was hesitant.

Falcó recently became engaged to investor Íñigo Onieva, who also appears on her Netflix show “Lady Tamara.”Iñigo Onieva Molas/Instagram

“It took me a while to say yes, because it [required] exposing myself a lot, and that’s always difficult,” she said. When she does a photoshoot for a brand or magazine, she generally presents a public, more polished version of herself — she usually has some say over the final images.

“It’s very different,” she said of the show. “And it’s weird to have all these cameras around.”

But if Falcó felt self-conscious, she didn’t let it show — the series follows her in an attempt to turn her father’s castle, El Rincón, into a pop-up restaurant, which opened for a weekend earlier this month, to great success — she said she’s in talks about launching another one. It also shows her attending New York Fashion Week, celebrating her 40th birthday, working out with her boyfriend (now-fiancé investor Íñigo Onieva), and praying the rosary as she talks about faith, fame, and family while addressing rumors surrounding her love life.

Tamara Falco — “La marquesa de Griñón” — is the Kim Kardashian of Spain. She’s also the star of “Lady Tamara,” a reality show on Netflix.Rubén Gray

“Honestly, considering that I was so scared of being in a show like that, it came out well,” she said. And, as long as she and the people she loves are happy with the show, that’s all that matters.

“That’s something I learned from my brother [singer Enrique Iglesias], who obviously has been super exposed,” Falcó said. “He said, ‘Why bother about what other people think? because if you do you become a little bit nuts.’”