Mirta Díaz-Balart, Former Wife of Fidel Castro, Passes Away at 95

Mirta Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez, the first wife of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and mother of his eldest son, passed away this Saturday at the age of 95. The news was shared on Twitter by her grandson Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov, son of Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart "Fidelito" (who took his own life in 2018) and Russian citizen Olga Smirnova.

"Surrounded by much love, my beloved grandmother Mirta Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez has departed. We have lost a great woman. Her end is not death. Her special affection, loyalty, and extraordinary history will remain eternal. She will continue to be the most concrete and kind expression of beauty," he wrote.

Mirta Francisca de la Caridad Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez was born in Havana on September 30, 1928, the daughter of a wealthy Cuban politician. She was studying Philosophy at the University of Havana when she met Fidel, a student of the Faculty of Law and a student leader. They married in 1948 despite her family's opposition, which nonetheless financed the wedding. They spent their honeymoon in Miami and New York.

In 1949, their only son, Fidelito, was born. The couple divorced in 1955 while Fidel was exiled in Mexico. Mirta retained sole custody of their child. In 1956, she married lawyer Emilio Núñez Blanco, from a family loyal to Fulgencio Batista and the son of former Cuban ambassador to the UN, Emilio Núñez Portuondo.

Life After Fidel

A 2016 report by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo recounts that when Fidel learned of her remarriage, he had their son sent to Mexico under the pretext of wanting to bid him farewell in case he died in his political struggles. However, once there, he held Fidelito against his will. Eventually, Núñez Portuondo rescued him.

After the revolution's triumph in the 1960s, Mirta and her husband, parents of two daughters, Mirta and América Silvia, moved permanently to Spain, while Fidelito was sent to study in the Soviet Union. Emilio, a staunch opponent of Castroism, contributed to various Miami newspapers. Mirta kept a low profile, never appearing in the media or speaking about her past or relationship with Fidel.

"She never spoke ill or well of Fidel, she never spoke. Even for those of us who knew her past, it was unmentionable, perhaps because she wanted to erase that chapter of her life," a close friend revealed to El Mundo.

Mirta's brothers, Waldo, a renowned painter, and Rafael, a former official of the Batista government, lived in Madrid and Miami, respectively. Rafael is the father of well-known Republican congressmen Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart, whom Mirta loved as her own children.

Fidelito and his mother remained very close; he visited her in Madrid, and she made occasional trips to Havana, organized by Raúl Castro himself, according to a 2020 article in El Nuevo Herald.

In 2006, when it was announced that Fidel Castro was ceding power to his brother due to illness, Mirta flew to Havana at her son's request. While she was in Cuba, her husband in Madrid, who had been suffering from Alzheimer's and was in a nursing home, passed away.

Mirta Díaz-Balart was the only woman Fidel Castro married in the Church. Following the dictator's death in 2016, she expressed that she was affected.

"I have felt sorrow for his death, even though that story happened over 60 years ago. These days, I have prayed for his soul; I am a Christian," she told El Mundo. "I remember my marriage to Fidel as something distant but also as a very beautiful stage of my youth. I never wished him ill; I always wished him well," she added.