Bipolar, narcissistic: a psychologist recounts Maradona’s personality during the trial on the circumstances of his death

The consequence of his long periods of addiction? Diego Maradona suffered from “bipolar disorder” and “narcissistic personality disorder”, revealed Thursday a psychologist, member of the treatment team judged for potential fatal negligence in their support of the star.

Carlos Diaz, specialist in addiction, was heard for the first time at the San Isidro court (near Buenos Aires), where seven health professionals (doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, nurses) have been on trial for two weeks for their possible responsibility in the death in 2020 of the Argentine football icon.

“For Maradona, it was necessary to treat, in addition to the addiction” to alcohol and psychotropic drugs, “a bipolar disorder and a narcissistic personality disorder. Three chronic conditions that last a lifetime,” said Carlos Diaz, saying he accompanied Maradona towards abstinence, in the very last month of his life.

This is the first time that a diagnosis of mental pathologies in Maradona has been mentioned in such a public way, by a specialist, whose addictions were however known, to cocaine and alcohol in particular. “It was explained to me that his consumption was very linked to his sporting successes, and that when faced with frustration, he did not know how to manage” the situation, explained Carlos Diaz.

Maradona ‘wanted to be clean’

Maradona, football legend, world champion in 1986, died at the age of 60 on November 25, 2020 of a cardiorespiratory crisis coupled with pulmonary edema, alone on his bed in a rented residence for hospitalization at home, convalescence from neurosurgery without complications.

Diaz, a 34-year-old addictologist, said he knew Maradona barely a month before his death, at the end of October 2020, and detected in him “a real desire for change” in relation to his addictions.

His only role in the star’s entourage, he pleaded, was to accompany him in a program aimed at abstinence, which according to him worked. “Maradona used every day, and he finished clean, after 23 days without consuming” substances, he stressed. “The toxicology exam showed that.”

At the first trial into Maradona’s death, which was canceled in May 2025 after a judge’s challenge, a forensic doctor certified that no trace of drugs or alcohol in Maradona’s blood at the time of his death had been revealed by toxicological examinations.

Maradona’s ex-partner angry

“We all wanted the best for Maradona,” assured Carlos Diaz, affirming that he “did not charge a peso” for his support of the idol, whose death presented no potential advantage for him, on the contrary, “only losses”. Losses “economic, emotional, especially for my family. Only losses, because what makes me feel the most helpless is that I was totally convinced that the patient wanted to be clean, that he wanted to be sober,” he observed.

The defendants in the trial deny any responsibility for Maradona’s death, citing natural causes. They hide behind their specialty, de facto passing the responsibility onto others. They face between 8 and 25 years in prison.

Thursday’s hearing, moving, electric at times, also saw Veronica Ojeda, the ex-partner and mother of Maradona’s 13-year-old son, Dieguito, oscillate between tears and insults during her testimony. “These murderers, these sons of bitches,” she exploded, turning to Carlos Diaz, precisely, when an audio message from the time of Maradona’s convalescence had just been broadcast to the audience, in which the psychologist seemed to denigrate her.

“I now understand the manipulation that they exercised on the whole family: they said one thing to me and to the daughters (Maradona’s eldest) another, so that we would not be united,” scolded Veronica Ojeda. The trial, with two hearings per week, could last until July.