Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – Maria Branyas Moreira entered the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest living person in the world, a Spanish national born in the United States, and has three children, 11 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.
Maria Branyas Moreira, at 115 years and 328 days old, has now been confirmed as the world’s oldest living woman, and the oldest person still alive, according to a Guinness press release Thursday.
This comes following the death of 118-year-old French nun Lucille Randon, who died on January 17.
“I’m old… very old, but I’m not stupid,” reads the bio of Maria Branyas Moreira on Twitter.
In a series of tweets in Catalan on Saturday, Maria Branyas Moreira said she was “surprised and grateful” for the interest generated by becoming the world’s oldest living person, but that the last days had been “exhausting” and that she would not give any more interviews.
She added: “I need peace and quiet, I have lived on the premises of the nursing home (Tura), for 22 years, and I do not want the daily lives of the residents or the staff who look following us to change.”
According to Guinness Book of Records, Maria was born in San Francisco, California, on March 4, 1907, one year following her parents immigrated to the United States of America, and eight years later, they decided to return to Spain, where they settled in Catalonia.
Since then, María has called the area home, staying in the same nursing home – Residència Santa María del Tura – for the past 22 years.
“She is in good health and continues to be surprised and grateful for the attention this memory has left,” the house said in a statement on Thursday.
Maria survived World Wars I and II, the Spanish Civil War, the Spanish flu pandemic, and the 2020 Corona pandemic.
Guinness says that she contracted the “Covid-19” virus a few weeks following celebrating her 113th birthday, but she was able to fully recover within a few days.
