How Luis Fonsi and Wife Agueda Lopez Helped Close Friend With Breast Cancer

When their close friend Clara Pablo was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, “Despacito” singer Luis Fonsi and his wife Agueda Lopez, showed her their full support — from letting her use their swanky pad to making sure the fridge was always stocked with her favorite non-dairy drink. “The hospital was two blocks away from their house and every time I had appointments instead of driving all the way back home, I would go to their house, whether they were there or not,” she tells PEOPLE CHICA. “I would be playing with the kids [Mikaela, 6, and Rocco, 1] or they would make me coffee. They bought almond milk because I’m not taking dairy. They were very supportive.”

The Dominican public relations, television and music executive, who was diagnosed at age 36, and received life-saving treatment at Miami Cancer Institute, has known Fonsi for over a decade. “I met him when I was a producer at Escándalo TV. He came to sing on the show. That was about 15 years ago,” she says, adding, “Later, I became his publicist at Universal Music and the rest is history!”

Pablo, who is now Senior Director of Music at Univision, has also become very close to the singer’s wife Agueda Lopez. “My first appointment was on Agueda’s birthday and she went with me,” she says of the Spanish model. “Fonsi moved one of his flights so he could be there with me when I rang the bell used to celebrate the last bout of radiation. Having them and their house as a second home was amazing.”

Pablo expresses gratitude for her entire network of friends and family, including her boyfriend, José Zozaya, who was with her when she did her biopsy. “Seeing him there and hugging him meant so much,” she says. “His first words were: ‘We got this’.”

Pablo is now in remission, but will have to continue preventive treatment for the next five years. “I talked to Fonsi a lot — and he and my boyfriend spoke a lot — because he was a caregiver at one point too,” she says of the record-breaking singer, who experienced breast cancer up close when his ex wife, TV host and actress Adamari Lopez, had to battle the disease in 2005. (Lopez is now cancer-free and has found love again with Spanish choreographer and dancer Toni Costa.)

Pablo said her circle of close friends, such as Peruvian TV host Pamela Silva of Univision’s Primer Impacto, helped sooth her anxieties and calm her mind: “One of the things you realize when you get cancer is that your family and friends get cancer too, not just you. They fought with me,” she emphasizes. “There were days when I was upset and having their support, having them drive me to appointments or be there to listen to me, meant so much. I would see people in the hospital by themselves. The last day of radiation you ring a bell to celebrate and there was a lady who rang the bell and she was by herself. My whole family and friends were there and they all clapped for her. It was amazing. In the hospital, I was known as the one with the big group. I had a squad with me. I feel like I didn’t do this by myself.”

Now, Pablo’s mission is to help other young Latinas catch the disease at an early stage to save lives. She launched the “Te Toca Tocarte” campaign on social media, urging women to regularly check their breasts for lumps. The publicist is also the first Latina to partner up with the National Breast Cancer Foundation. “We are raising money to give away free mammograms for women who can’t afford them, and in just a month we have already given away 15,” she says. “I feel like God finally gave me what my true purpose is in life.”