Ask most people about Fernando González Parra and they will give you one of two answers. He is Camila Sodi’s father, or he is the man Nailea Norvind publicly accused of refusing to pay child support. Both answers are accurate. Neither one covers the full picture.
González Parra spent over three decades running Ovaciones, one of Mexico’s most widely read sports newspapers. His family owned that paper for 42 years. He was shaping Mexican print media before most of his daughters were born, and that chapter of his life is almost entirely absent from the coverage that follows his name today.
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Who Is Fernando González Parra?
Fernando González Parra is a Mexican journalist and businessman who studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Some sources describe him as a lawyer as well, though his professional life was built entirely in media. His daughter Naian González Norvind has spoken about growing up watching him attend the opera, theatre, and cinema regularly, and has described him as a poet — a side of him that rarely surfaces in headlines.
He did not build a career from nothing. He inherited a platform, and then spent more than 30 years running it.
The Ovaciones Era: A 42-Year Family Newspaper
Ovaciones was founded in January 1947 by Luciano Contreras as a 16-page bullfighting weekly. In 1950, Fernando González Parra’s father — Fernando González D.L. — purchased the publication and built it into a full daily under the company Publicaciones e Impresiones Mexicanas, S.A. de C.V. (PEIMSA).
In 1962, González D.L. handed the General Directorship to his son, Fernando González Parra. His brother Ramón González Parra came on as manager alongside him. That same year, on May 24, 1962 — timed to the World Cup opening in Chile — the paper launched La Segunda Edición, which quickly hit record circulation figures across Mexico City.
From 1962 onward, González Parra ran Ovaciones through some of the country’s most consequential decades. The paper’s record circulation events under his watch included coverage of the death of Pedro Infante, the 1985 earthquake, and the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio.
His Editorial Decisions at Ovaciones
His directorship was not administrative-only. He made specific choices that defined how the paper was read:
- Introduced “page three” with women’s photography — considered well ahead of convention in Mexican publishing at the time.
- Gave tennis its own centrefold — a platform the sport had never received in a Mexican print outlet before, driven by his personal passion for the game.
- Covered every sporting discipline at a time when the majority of Mexican sports media focused almost entirely on football.
Sports journalism publication Respuesta Deportiva described him plainly as “one of the most emblematic journalists of 20th-century Mexico.”
The Televisa Acquisition
On July 27, 1992, Televisa acquired the majority of the González Parra family’s shares. Fernando remained on as Director. By December 10, 1993, Televisa had purchased the company outright, naming Jacobo Zabludowsky as President and Director General. The González Parra family’s ownership of Ovaciones — which had begun with his father in 1950 — was over.
Forty-two years as a family-run newspaper, closed in a single transaction.
After his exit, Revista Mexicana de Comunicación noted his name among media figures who expressed interest in acquiring Excélsior around 2002. That deal never came together.
His Relationships and Children
Fernando González Parra is the father of six daughters across his personal relationships.
Ernestina Sodi
His first well-documented relationship was with Ernestina Sodi — writer, journalist, and sister of pop star Thalía. From this came two daughters:
- Camila Sodi (born March 18, 1986) — actress known for Luis Miguel: La Serie, Capadocia, and a broad film and television career.
- Marina González Sodi — actress, now based in Mérida.
The relationship ended in the mid-1980s, reportedly when González Parra began a relationship with Nailea Norvind, according to journalist Gustavo Adolfo Infante. Ernestina Sodi publicly attributed the separation to alleged physical abuse by González Parra. He has never made a public statement in response.
Nailea Norvind
Fernando González Parra married actress Nailea Norvind in 1988. Norvind, born February 16, 1970, had broken through the year before with her role as Leonor on the telenovela Quinceañera. The couple had two daughters:
- Naian González Norvind (born February 7, 1992) — actress, writer, and producer. She won Best Actress at the Morelia International Film Festival for Leona (2018) and has since appeared in New Order (2020), the Apple TV+ series Invasion, and Corina (2024), which earned her the Diosa de Plata for Best Actress.
- Tessa Ía González Norvind (born April 3, 1995) — actress and singer, known for After Lucia (2012), which earned her a Young Artist Award nomination, and Narcos: Mexico (2018).
They separated around 1997, after nine years together.
The Child Support Dispute and Abuse Allegations
Not long after the separation, Nailea Norvind went public. She appeared on the talk programme Cosas de la Vida, hosted by Rocío Sánchez Azuara, and confirmed to El Universal that two and a half years after their split she had received no response from González Parra regarding financial support. At that point, Naian was around eight years old and Tessa was five. Norvind said she hoped making the situation public could create some change for other women facing the same circumstances.
In 2020, she returned to Cosas de la Vida and went further, publicly alleging physical abuse during their relationship. González Parra has not addressed this in public at any point.
Fernanda and Margaux González
Beyond his four publicly known daughters, González Parra also has two others: Fernanda González and Margaux González. No credible source has identified their mother or shared details about their lives.
Six Daughters, One Bond
Despite the complicated histories between their respective mothers, the four publicly known daughters of Fernando González Parra have kept a genuinely close relationship.
| Daughter | Mother | Known For |
|---|---|---|
| Camila Sodi | Ernestina Sodi | Luis Miguel: La Serie, Capadocia |
| Marina González Sodi | Ernestina Sodi | Actress, based in Mérida |
| Naian González Norvind | Nailea Norvind | Corina, Invasion, New Order |
| Tessa Ía González Norvind | Nailea Norvind | After Lucia, Narcos: Mexico |
| Fernanda González | Not publicly identified | Private |
| Margaux González | Not publicly identified | Private |
When Ernestina Sodi died in November 2024, Naian and Tessa were close to Camila and Marina throughout the grieving period. At the January 2025 premiere of her film Corina, Naian spoke about the bond between the sisters, describing it as built on real support. Naian has also spoken about her father in warmer terms than the public record might suggest — referring to him as a poet and crediting the artistic environment he created at home for much of her interest in the arts.
Fernando González Parra Today
He holds no active role in Mexican media and has not given a public interview in years. His name comes up in old newspaper clippings, in the official history of Ovaciones, and in stories his daughters tell about their family.
He inherited a 16-page bullfighting weekly, built it into a national sports daily across four decades, and stepped away when the ownership passed to Televisa. The controversies around his personal life remain on the record, unanswered from his side.
His daughters keep working. And the name Fernando González Parra keeps turning up — in their interviews, in the family histories written around them, and in the journalism archives of a country whose media landscape he helped shape.
