After 17 years as the voice of the well-known Spanish group Presuntos Implicados, singer Lydia Rodriguez has left the band - and she isn't leaving quietly. In a sharp statement, she claims that behind the scenes she went through something completely different from what was seen under the spotlights.

Rodriguez, who joined the group in 2008, speaks of „continuous mistreatment" throughout her entire time there. She claims they controlled how she expressed herself in public and on social media, that they criticized her weight and appearance, and that she was shut out of decisions within the band. „The journey behind the scenes was very different from what was seen under the lights," she says. „They made me feel completely excluded. I had neither a voice nor a right to a decision."

She describes her former bandmates Juan Luis Jimenez and Nacho Mañó as „accomplices in the mistreatment" - people who, according to her, never defended her even as they watched what was happening. How much of this is the whole truth and how much is one side of the story will only become clear if the other side speaks up; for now we have only her words, and they are heavy.

Still, the way she's leaving says something. „I'm leaving with my head held high and very excited for the future," she announces, teasing music of her own in which her voice will be heard „for real," with „freedom, dignity, and respect." Band breakups are rarely clean - but when someone, after 17 years, chooses to leave loudly rather than quietly, it usually means the silence had become more expensive than the truth.