Broncano recalls mother's strict teaching: 'She treated me fairly to avoid favoritism'

David Broncano sits down to talk about his childhood, and what emerges is a portrait of a boy raised in the mountains of Jaén, shaped by parents who believed in letting their children roam free. Born on December 30, 1984, in Santiago de Compostela, he moved to Orcera when he was two years old—a small municipality nestled in the Sierra de Segura, part of Spain's largest natural park. His father studied economics in the 1970s; his mother was a mathematics teacher in their hometown. Both have appeared in his interviews over the years, and Broncano speaks of them with genuine gratitude, crediting them with the foundation of who he became.

One memory stands out from his school years. His mother taught him mathematics in third and fourth year of secondary school, and she made a deliberate choice about how to conduct herself in the classroom. Rather than show him special attention or favor, she treated him exactly as she treated every other student. Broncano recalls this with appreciation now, understanding it as a strategy to prevent any whisper of preferential treatment. He even jokes about it—how she would turn away when he tried to get her attention, ignoring his pleas for help, a tactic he recognizes now as both protective and wise. It was her way of keeping the classroom fair, of keeping him honest.

But his mother's firmness extended beyond the classroom. During his adolescence, Broncano developed a consuming passion for computers and video games. His mother would wake early, around seven in the morning, and sometimes find him still awake, having never gone to bed at all, lost in the glow of the screen. She took action—confiscating his keyboard, using what he describes as deception to break his grip on the machine. At the time, he was angry. He felt the sting of her intervention. But as he reflects on it now, he understands what she was doing. He recognizes the desperation she must have felt, watching her son disappear into technology night after night. "I was angry, but I understood her desperation," he says.

His childhood in Orcera was, by his own account, wild and unstructured. His parents operated on a philosophy of freedom—they wanted their children to grow up like animals in nature, unfenced and exploratory. His house sat just ten meters from open land, and he spent his days climbing trees, living outdoors, moving through the landscape with his brother like characters from a jungle story. "I was a Mowgli," he says, still vivid in the memory. "I spent entire days literally in a tree." This freedom was formative. When he later moved to Madrid as a teenager, he found himself missing that direct contact with nature, that sense of boundless space.

Madrid itself holds a different kind of significance in his family story. His parents met there during the movida madrileña, that cultural explosion of the 1970s and 80s. They were, by his description, hippies—unconventional, unmoored from convention. They didn't exchange phone numbers when they first met. Instead, they arranged to see each other days later at the Retiro, Madrid's grand park. His mother didn't show up. The city is vast, and they lived in different neighborhoods. Yet somehow, they found each other again. They married. And then he was born.

Now, as the host of La revuelta on RTVE, Broncano carries these stories with him. The show is extending its run through 2028, and he continues to weave personal anecdotes into his interviews, using them to build connection with his guests and his audience. He remains deeply tied to Orcera, returning when he can, speaking often of his love for the place and the people who shaped him there. His brother, who grew up alongside him in those mountains, recently stepped down as technical director of the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra for personal reasons. The family bonds remain strong, rooted in a childhood of freedom, fairness, and the kind of parental wisdom that sometimes looks like refusal—a mother turning away, a keyboard confiscated, a boy left to find his own way back.