Charo promises fans she’ll keep performing despite husband’s suicide

Charo has released an emotional video thanking fans for their support since husband Kjell Rasten’s suicide last month.

“It’s been a month since my husband died. It’s very, very hard,” the Spanish entertainer said in the video, which was posted to social media late Wednesday. “I want to thank you with all my heart for your help, your prayers, your support. That kept me going.”

The singer and classically trained flamenco guitarist said she’d been “meditating” for the past month and had decided to keep performing in honor of Rasten, her husband of 40 years and a man she had called the love of her life.

“I want to let you know that my husband support[ed] my music ... because he knows that I’m happy when I’m performing,” Charo said. “In his honor, I want to share with you that I will continue for his legacy and for the love that I have for entertaining, to make people happy.”

Rasten, who was also Charo’s manager, died Feb. 18, at age 78, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after succumbing to injuries self-inflicted at their Beverly Hills home earlier that day. The next day, she released a statement explaining what had happened.

“In recent years, his health began to decline and he developed a rare and horrible skin disease called Bullous Pemphigoid,” she said in the February statement. “He also became very depressed. That, along with the many medications he needed to take, became too much for him, and he ended his suffering.”

Rasten was Charo’s second husband and the father of the couple’s son, Shel Rasten.

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