‘EVERYONE HAS ABANDONED ME EXCEPT GOD, I DON’T EVEN HAVE A TOILET’ Confession of a contestant on Never too late
Snežana Pavlović, contestant of the talent show Never too late, lives on the brink of existence with 14 dogs and 11 cats. She shone on the Grand stage in 2019 and enchanted many with her voice, but after the show ended, she returned to her life far from the stage lights.
In recent days, a video of her performing a song by Zorica Brunclik while sitting on the ground has become a hit on social media. The video was recorded in the field where Snežana works. Praising comments keep piling up, and everyone is giving her support, wishing to see her back on stage.
A Kurir team found Snežana in her dilapidated house in Stara Pazova. Although she does not have the basic conditions for living, she welcomed us with a smile.
“I earn from day labour. My boss recorded me while I was singing, I didn’t even notice. I’ve been working there for three years now, it’s hard work. My daily wage is 3,000 dinars,” says Snežana at the beginning, and continues:
does not have the basic conditions for living, she welcomed us with a smile.
“I earn from day labour. My boss recorded me while I was singing, I didn’t even notice. I’ve been working there for three years now, it’s hard work. My daily wage is 3,000 dinars,” says Snežana at the beginning, and continues:
“After the competition I didn’t sing because no one called me, and when they did, it was only to take money from me. I would sing all night, get a tip of 300–400 euros, and the band would give me only 1,000 dinars. Then I realised it was better to work in the field. That’s seasonal work. In winter I live off social assistance. I have a freezer, so I fill it as much as I can and then in winter I eat from it and wait. It’s hard work, but I have to earn my bread. Every day I walk two kilometres to the van that takes me there and the same distance back, and I spend eight hours there on my feet. When my legs give way, I hitchhike, sometimes someone gives me a lift, sometimes not. When I get money, I don’t know whether first to buy food for myself or for the dogs and cats I’ve taken in. Sometimes I bring something home, and sometimes we have nothing, but at least we’re not starving. Apart from them, I have no one, and I work and toil for them, I cannot allow them to cry from hunger.”
Snežana was married, but her husband left her for another woman.
“He loved another, a red-haired woman. He didn’t love me. It was an unhappy love. We had two children, but when he threw me out of the house, they stayed with him. I cried a lot for them. Even now they don’t want to hear from me. After me he brought in another seven women. My daughter Jelena is 38 years old, and my son 35. He plays the accordion, he’s musical like me. I still don’t see them, I called them at least to come and see and divide the land I have here, but they don’t want even that. Everyone has abandoned me except God. No one helps me. The fields, the greenhouses, the plantations have consumed me. I also have a brother. He helped me as much as he could, he repaired the washing machine I had bought when I was young. For years I washed by hand, but now that I’ve grown older I can’t any more, so I thank him for that,” she said.
When her husband left her on the street, she returned to her father’s house in Valjevo and told him she would begin a musical career, which he did not approve.
“For eight years I sang at every celebration, people from all over the world loved me because of the talent God gave me. They still love me, but I was surprised when I saw that my video had such an impact. I don’t have a phone or a computer, but my neighbour told me, and through him a man contacted me and hired me for a birthday celebration in Smederevo. He will come for me, and his daughter even bought me six dresses. When I heard that, oh… then shoes, then sandals… Oh, good Lord, when would I ever have bought that?”
Snežana lives in a ramshackle house without a bathroom, toilet, electricity or water.
“After eight years of singing I earned this piece of land and a little house, and now I fight for life. The house has no electricity, but the church allowed me to connect. I don’t have water either. I have two taps outside. I bathe in a tub in the yard in summer. In winter I sometimes bathe, because it’s too cold, I can’t, I just pour a little over myself on the terrace and run inside. I don’t have a toilet, I do that outside. I don’t have a kitchen or dining room, everything is in the room where I sleep. I eat on the bed, and I keep food in the freezer, I don’t have a fridge, it doesn’t work. The walls aren’t painted, there’s no one to do it, nor to mow the grass. I called people, collected money for it and offered, but no one wants to come.”
As she says, her greatest wish is to sing again on stage and enter a studio.
“I didn’t go to school, I’m self-taught, my voice is a gift from God, but still, it sounds different when working with professionals. On the show Never too late I performed in front of cameras for the first time, and our best accordionist Sofronijević accompanied me, I would love to feel that again. It doesn’t have to be him, but I would like to go to a studio and record something with a professional from whom I could learn. I asked them if I could apply again, but they told me they don’t accept former contestants,” concluded Snežana.
Neighbour has only words of praise: When she came from Valjevo, she lived in the church and worked in the garden
The neighbour says that Snežana is a good woman, who stood by him when he was at his lowest.
“I’ve known Snežana for over 30 years. She is extremely modest and hard-working, kind-hearted and honest. She has gone through many difficult moments in life. When I was in the hardest period of my life, I lost my son in a car accident, she was the one who first reached out to me and my family. I don’t forget that, and so I have a great wish to help her somehow, because her voice is truly incredible. When she came from Valjevo, she lived in the church and worked in the garden. Life has not been kind to her, yet she still has not an ounce of hatred in her. That’s why I always try to be there for her, to do all I can when she has a problem. A few days ago I went and bought her a speaker and microphone. When she sang, it sounded so magical, and that’s why it pains me – the music scene is full of singers with zero vocal quality, while she has an extraordinary voice. I hope some influential people from the music scene will get involved and, together with the media, do something so that, as one comment said, she will no longer be ‘in the mud, but in gold’.”
‘My husband beat me, my mother-in-law gave me only one boiled potato a day to eat’
Snežana revealed that she endured violence in her marriage.
“He beat me every day, before he threw me out on the street, he beat me so badly I didn’t even look like a woman. They locked me in the house, they didn’t give me food. When I had just given birth, my mother-in-law gave me one boiled potato a day. They were wealthy, but I never saw any of that wealth, I was treated worse than a servant. Once I spread jam on bread, but they snatched it from my hand and threw it away.”
Kurir.rs