Sueño de amor (2016)

In Sueño de amor, a 2016 Televisa telenovela, Betty Monroe played Esperanza Guerrero, a teacher and single mother. It was her first telenovela at Televisa, and in 2016 she called it her first lead role. In 2026 she spoke about it again.

The story

Esperanza Guerrero and Ricardo Alegría (Cristián de la Fuente) shared their first love and were separated. Twenty years later their lives are very different. Esperanza is a single mother and a teacher at two schools, the exclusive Instituto Palacios and the modest Colegio Vasconcelos, and she dreams of building her own school. Ricardo lives in Los Angeles, where he works as an Interpol agent. Life brings them back together when he arrives at the Instituto Palacios as an undercover agent, on the trail of a criminal known as “La Sombra.”

Betty in Sueño de amor

In 2016

In December 2015, producer Juan Osorio introduced Betty Monroe and Cristián de la Fuente as the telenovela’s lead couple. It was her first telenovela at Televisa. Before the premiere, she told Notimex:

“even if they hadn’t given me much, I’m fine, it’s my first lead role in an 18-year career” (translated from Spanish).

In the story, Esperanza is diagnosed with cancer, and for the scene in which her character loses her hair, Betty Monroe shaved her head on camera. In May 2016 she told People en Español:

“Mr. Juan Osorio suggested it to me, and I told him to let me think about it. At first I didn’t want to do it, so they did latex tests on me and had wigs made. But my castmates, among them Cristián de la Fuente and Julián Gil, encouraged me” (translated from Spanish).

“In the end I made the decision to do it, and in a few days this big challenge will be recorded. It’s going to be something very important for Esperanza” (translated from Spanish).

The scene was recorded in June 2016, with Cristián de la Fuente and Julián Gil by her side. According to El Universal, she said that day: “I spent months thinking about whether I’d do it, then I said, why not? It has to be done” (translated from Spanish). And Cristián de la Fuente told her she had his admiration: “you have my admiration for always going above and beyond” (translated from Spanish).

In 2026

On September 21, 2026, on Suriel’s podcast La Hora del Té, Betty Monroe spoke again about making the telenovela. The quotes follow the episode’s automatic captions, compared with press transcriptions, and give the minute where she says them.

When the interviewer asked her about the cast changes halfway through the telenovela, she talked about the ratings that were expected and about Cristián de la Fuente (21:37):

“like the time Cristián de la Fuente pulled a fast one on me, he made fun of me and ended up working at TV Azteca” (translated from Spanish).

In the same answer she talked about arriving from another network (22:01):

“you join a company where a lot of people don’t agree that someone who comes from another, well, from another network, well, they didn’t like it” (translated from Spanish).

And about Julián Gil (22:17):

“The only one who at some point defended me and told me, ‘You have to be very careful with so-and-so and so-and-so because they’re doing this,’ was Julián Gil. He was the one who told me, ‘Open your eyes’” (translated from Spanish).

Right after that, about the scene in which she shaved her head (22:25):

“when they tried to belittle me and shave me and make me bald […] I said, ‘You know what? If I’m going to play a lead role, I’m going to give it 100 percent. I don’t care about being bald because I’m pretty, and if they think this is going to bring me down, well, no’” (translated from Spanish).

In these passages she doesn’t say who “so-and-so and so-and-so” are, or who tried to “belittle” her.

On October 12, 2026, Cristián de la Fuente responded to the press, in remarks aired by Imagen Televisión’s De Primera Mano. According to People en Español, he said:

“If I did something that obviously made her feel bad, what a shame that so much time has gone by, because I’d love to say, obviously, it was unintentional” (translated from Spanish).

And he sent her a message: “A big kiss to her” (translated from Spanish).

Videos

Videos play from YouTube. When you click one, YouTube may store cookies in your browser (privacy notice, in Spanish).

In this Tlnovelas video, posted before the premiere, Betty Monroe talks about her character, Esperanza Guerrero:

Sueño de amor: Betty Monroe is Esperanza Guerrero — Tlnovelas, January 20, 2016

The promo “Conoce a Esperanza” (“Meet Esperanza”), which announced the February 22 premiere:

Sueño de amor: Meet Esperanza — Las Estrellas, January 29, 2016

And an interview from Las Estrellas in which she talks about her character:

Interview with Betty Monroe, Sueño de amor — Las Estrellas, February 27, 2016

In the press

• Televisa, December 3, 2015: “Betty Monroe y Cristian de la Fuente, protagonistas de ‘Sueño de Amor’”, in Spanish.
• El Siglo de Torreón, January 7, 2016: “Betty Monroe será una madre incansable en Sueño de amor”, from Notimex, in Spanish.
• Televisa, February 19, 2016: “‘Sueño de Amor’ nueva producción de Juan Osorio”, in Spanish.
• People en Español, May 20, 2016: “Betty Monroe habla de la difícil decisión que tomó para Sueño de amor” (Internet Archive copy, in Spanish).
• El Universal, June 8, 2016: “Entre llantos, Betty Monroe se rapa por completo”, in Spanish.
• El Siglo de Torreón, August 1, 2016: “Celebra Juan Osorio con elenco fin de grabaciones de Sueño de amor”, from Notimex, in Spanish.
• People en Español, October 13, 2026: “Actriz de la telenovela ‘Sueño de amor’ cuenta los desprecios que vivió en el rodaje: ‘Se burló de mí’”, in Spanish.
• Televisa, the telenovela’s official site in 2016 (Internet Archive copies, in Spanish): synopsis and credits.

Last updated: October 21, 2026.

All her roles, on Career.