Julián Figueroa, the 28-year-old son of actress Maribel Guardia and late Mexican music icon Joan Sebastian, died Sunday of a heart attack, Guardia confirmed Monday morning. He was 28.
“It saddens me to inform you about the death of my beloved son Julián Figueroa, who unfortunately has left us in this life,” she wrote in Spanish. “He was found unconscious in his room, while I was at the theater.”
Guardia explained that 911 was called, and when an ambulance and police arrived, Figueroa was found dead due to a heart attack and ventricular arrhythmia with “no evidence of any violence.”
“I beg for your understanding in this profound pain that we are facing, I wish I could speak to everyone who’s reaching out, but I don’t have the strength to do so just yet,” Guardia wrote. “I beg for respect of our privacy amid this painful moment we’re going through.”
Recently, Figueroa starred in the Televisa-Univisión telenovela Mi Camino Es Amarte as a protagonist and released a banda album titled Yo Sería last year. Figueroa starred in TV programs like Cómo Dice el Dicho and played a young version of his father in the bio-series Por Siempre Joan Sebastian. He also performed his father’s hits on horseback in venues across Mexico.
Countless fellow musicians, including Ángela Aguilar, Ana Bárbara, Belinda, Marco Antonio Solis, and Alejandro Sanz, among others left condolences under Guardia’s post. Figueroa’s death happened just a day after he shared a touching remembrance post in honor of his father Joan Sebastian, who would have turned 72 Saturday.
Sharing a photo of himself as a baby alongside his father Saturday, he said that the eight years since his death had gone by “so slowly” and that each day is “much more bitter” without him. “My only desire is to hug you once more,” he wrote. (Sebastian died of bone cancer.)
“Everyone says time fixes everything, but that’s a vile lie. Every day hurts more,” he wrote, later adding, “Your fans may yell ‘Long live the Poet of el Pueblo‘ but that doesn’t matter to me. I just want my dad.”
Guardia shared that funeral services will take place privately and with close family.
Julián is the third of Joan Sebastian’s eight children to die unexpectedly. His son Trigo Figueroa was killed by Sebastian’s fans in 2006 during an altercation outside of the late singer’s dressing room, and his other son Juan Sebastián was killed outside of a bar in 2010.
