By Paul Lambis
Tania Head had one of the most tragic and inspiring stories to come out of the September 11 attacks, and one with a rather unusual twist. Located in the south tower of the then World Trade Centre, she was on the same floor as the second plane hit. Tania witnessed horrific carnage and was handed a wedding ring by a dying man who requested that she give it to his wife.
She was led to safety by Welles Crowther, the famous “man in the red bandanna,” who lost his own life while trying to rescue others. Finally, Tania woke up in a New York hospital – six days later, only to find her husband had been killed in the north tower. Head became the face of the September 11 survivor’s movement, telling her story to the media and to tour groups at Ground Zero. There was just one problem: not a word of it was true.
“Survivors of the attacks believed that a great deal of their healing came from Tania helping them,” says Robin Gaby Fisher, co-author of the book The Woman Who Wasn’t There. “They needed that validation, and no one was able to get that for them, except for Tania.”
Tania Head became a hero. She represented the hope of every American who had either survived or experienced the trauma of losing a loved one in the attacks. Her friends thought of her as the ‘World Trade Centre superstar.’ They later found out she was a fraud.
As the compelling founder of the World Trade Centre Survivors’ Network she was in a position to demand an empathetic response from within the community of organisations that evolved to treat those deeply scarred by 9/11. Until Head made the case, survivors weren’t even allowed private access to Ground Zero as family members were. If they felt the need to revisit the site of the most horrific day in their lives, they had to wait in line with the tourists.
Her story alone qualified her to take the lead. It was Head’s charisma, though, that made her such an effective advocate for the survivors. Her organisation even launched a successful campaign to preserve a two-tier staircase that carried so many to safety. She was chosen to guide Mayor Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani on a walking tour at the inauguration of the WTC Tribute Centre. She was the one to present the case to Congress that survivors had health concerns, too.
But then her real story was told, sending shockwaves through the community. In 2007, The New York Times featured an exposé on Tania, revealing to the world that her story was nothing more than a pathological lie.
In The Woman Who Wasn’t There, Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr. – a documentary filmmaker who knew Head – detail her astounding deception, for which she has shown no remorse. Guglielmo found her alone in her apartment the day the news broke. She was in tears but not for the reason one might expect.
Head was seared by the “betrayal” of her friends, the survivors she had deceived, who spoke to reporters about the pain she caused them.
Eventually Head, whose real name is Alicia Esteve, and the daughter of a prosperous businessperson who went to prison for embezzlement, disappeared. Alicia Esteve Head was born in July 1973 to a wealthy businessman and his much younger wife, the last of five children and the only girl. The family lived a prosperous life, moving between their sprawling Barcelona apartment, their villa in Majorca, and a country estate called El Campesino. Life revolved around yachting, horses and tennis at exclusive clubs. Alicia was “her parents’ jewel,” a family friend recalled. “She was spoiled, granted every wish, no matter how extravagant.” During summer holidays in Majorca, her parents flew in her three horses from Barcelona rather than listen to her whine about missing them. Her 16th birthday present was a diamond-encrusted Rolex watch worth tens of thousands of dollars.
However, the one thing her parents could not give Alicia was what she most wanted: to be an American. “Americans were her idols and she was always talking about the US,” says Sonia Humet, her closest childhood friend.
According to psychologists, a pathological liar concocts lies in public to make people believe new stories.
They begin to live these stories. This stems from their need to have the last word or to beat everyone’s stories. They often lie for many reasons, one of these being to have their own way in various activities.
Perhaps this was Tania’s way to enhance her image in American society – the one she aspired to belong.
Since her disappearance, Guglielmo has run into her several times on the streets of New York, the last time shortly after the 10th anniversary of 9/11. When he accosted her, Tania/Alicia threatened to call the police. Call that the final irony of a “superstar.”
