Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler (born on May 8, 1975), better known as Enrique Iglesias, is a Spanishsinger, songwriter, model, and actor. Iglesias also has Maltese citizenship.
Iglesias started his musical career with Mexican indie label Fonovisa, which helped turn him into one of the most popular artists in Latin America and in the Latino market in the United States, selling more Spanish language albums than any other artist in that period of time.
Before the turn of the millennium he made a crossover into the mainstream English language market, signing a unique multi–album deal with Universal Music for an unprecedented $48,000,000, with Universal Music Latino to release his Spanish albums and Interscope to release English albums.
Iglesias has sold over 60 million albums worldwide,has had two Billboard Hot 100 #1s and one #3, and holds the record for producing 19 number #1 Spanish–language singles on the Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks.
Early life and career
Iglesias was born in Madrid, the third and final child of Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and Filipina socialite and magazine journalist Isabel Preysler.His parents divorced in 1978, and the following year their father moved to Miami, Florida to continue with his musical career.
In 1985, Iglesias' grandfather, Dr. Julio Iglesias Puga was kidnapped by the terrorist group ETA. Fearing for his grandchildren's safety, Enrique and his brother were sent to live with their father in Miami.
In America, he lived the life of a typical Miami teen. Though his father's career kept him on the road, the young Iglesias was raised by the family nanny. In 1993 he graduated from Gulliver Preparatory School and went on to study business at the University of Miami.
Enrique did not want his father to know about his plans for a musical career, and did not want his famous surname to help advance his career. Borrowing money from his family nanny he recorded a demo tape which consisted of one Spanish song and two English songs. Approaching his father's former publicist Fernan Martinez, the two shopped the demo tape under the stage name 'Enrique Martinez' with the backstory of being an unknown from Guatemala. Iglesias was signed by a then small indie record label called Fonovisa. Dropping out of college he went to Toronto, Ontario, Canada for six months to record his first album.
Public Image
From the beginning of his career Iglesias's public image has been that of a heartthrob with a lot of his early music videos portrayed him as a Boy next door. This image proved instantly popular with fans, and after Iglesias's first television performance he was mobbed by crowds of young girls and he had to resort to lying on the floor of a taxi to leave the studio undetected;
This would become the norm for Iglesias when promoting his music but reached fever pitch In 1999 in support of the Cosas Del Amor album Iglesias visited Chile to perform at Viña del Mar International Song Festival. His visit to the country was highly publicised for the Beatlemania-esque reaction it caused, with thousands of young girls packing the streets of the airport and outside Iglesias's hotel. Iglesias drew record crowds to the event and received much praise for his set
His visit to the festival the following year however would be remembered for much different reasons. When presented with the award called La Gaviota, Iglesias lightly tossed the award into the first few rows of the audience. At first this evoked no visible reaction from the audience but when the presenter expressed offense and demanded that the award be passed back the crowd reacted negatively. The next day the media reacted negatively to what was seen as a slight by Iglesias, at a press conference Iglesias explained that he meant to show that the award was for his fans. Despite continued strong sales in Latin America Iglesias has never been invited back to the Festival and the incident is often brought up when he visits Chile.
In June 2000, radio personality Howard Stern received a tape of a supposedly off-key MP3 of Iglesias singing, along to the track "Rhythm Divine". Stern played this humorous clip throughout the week on his radio show insinuating that Iglesias lip synched and couldn't sing well outside the studio, even suggesting that Iglesias himself did not sing on his albums, comparing him to Milli Vanilli. Iglesias flew straight in to New York from Italy where he had just performed with Pavarotti, and appeared on Stern's show, singing acoustic versions of "Rhythm Divine" and "Be with You", after which Stern told Iglesias he had silenced his critics. Iglesias would go on to say that controversy and his appearance on the show was the best promotion he could have.
Personal life
Since the beginning of his career the media have linked Iglesias to many women, though due to his generally private nature it is difficult to know which claims are true and which are fabrications. Most notably Iglesias has been linked with Sofia Vergara, Alexandra Cheron, Samantha Torres, and allegedly dated Alicia Machado for a brief period. After crossing over into English he was strongly linked in the media to Jennifer Love Hewitt, with whom he remained friends and who co–starred in the music video for Hero a year later.
For six years now he publicly has dated tennis star Anna Kournikova, whom he met on the set of his music video Escape. Many reports showed up since 2007 of their splitting. In 2008, after Enrique made a publicity joke,there were reports of the couple's having been married formerly and now divorced. Enrique has stated subsequently in interviews that it was simply a joke, and that they are still very much together.
Iglesias has publicly stated he suffers from insomnia,and that even heavy-duty sleep aids often do not work for him.
In 2003, Iglesias had his trademark facial mole removed.
Iglesias is very well known for not taking the media seriously and has consistently joked about a wide variety of matters including the state of his relationship - as mentioned above - as well as the size of his manhood. The latter story persisted for so long Iglesias had to retract his earlier statement and try to set the record straight
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