Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler was born on May 8, 1975 in Madrid, Spain. He is better known as Enrique Iglesias; a Spanish singer, songwriter and actor. Enrique is the third and youngest child of the Spanish singer Julio Inglesias. His mother Isabel Preysler, a magazine journalist, later divorced his father in 1978. The following year, their father moved to Miami, Florida to continue with his musical career. In 1985, Enrique’s 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. He also lived in Belgrade, Serbia for one year with his mother, who worked as a journalist. As his father’s career kept him on the road, Enrique was raised by the family nanny.
In 1993, he graduated from Gulliver Preparatory School, and continued on to study business at the University of Miami. Despite being a son of a big singer, Enrique didn’t want to take the advantage of his father’s famous name. Without telling his father, he borrowed money from his nanny and recorded a demo containing one Spanish song and two English songs. The demo was later showed to his father’s old publicist Fernan Martinez.
Together, they then promoted the songs under the stage name “ Enrique Martinez” with the backstory of being an unknown singer from Guatemala. In 1996, he released his first album in Spanish under his real name Enrique Iglesias, which included mega-hits Por Amarte, Trapecista, and others. In 1997, Iglesias’ fame continued to rise when he released Vivir, which instantly made him more popular compared to other English music superstars for that year. Enrique Inglesias began a very successful cross over into the English world of the musical market in 1999. Enrique Inglesias introduced “ Rhythm Divine” to his audience and listeners which almost instantly made it a number one hit.
In 2001, he released his English CD, titled Enrique. His song Hero became a number one hit in many places. Enrique Inglesias broke all records when ten of his songs rose to the pole position on Billboard’s Dance charts. His eighth number one on the Billboard Dance Chart “ Tonight (I’m Loving’ You)” made Enrique Iglesias the artist with most number-one songs among solo male artists in the chart’s history, exceeding Michael Jackson and Prince. Because of his success on charts, Iglesias has become one of the wealthiest Spanish singers, with his reported net worth somewhere in the region of $75 million to $80 million. His primary sources of income are the proceeds from his record sales which stand at an outstanding 100 million albums worldwide! Enrique Inglesias released the single “ Do You Know” (The Ping Pong Song) in 2007 when the album Insomniac was let out for the fans to purchase.
Heartbeat was released in 2008 but didn’t become very popular until 2010 when it was rereleased with “ I Like It. After four Spanish and four English albums, Enrique Iglesias released his ninth album Euphoria in 2010 as bilingual, which contains seven songs in English and six in Spanish. The album includes guest appearances by Akon, Nicole Scherzinger, Pitbull and others. Even though Enrique Inglesias grew up pampered and lived luxuriously because of his father’s wealth, he took up the joy of living simpler.
This shows in his concerts when he chooses to wear plain white cotton t-shirts instead of expensive clothing. Some interesting facts about Enrique Inglesias are that he never wears a watch and only carries one on him. He firmly believes in love at first sight. He has received a pilot’s license. He had started taking piloting lessons sometime in 2002 to get over his fear of flying.
It wasn’t easy for Enrique Inglesias to get as far as he did. To become famous it takes time, dedication, and work. Due to perseverance and the ability to work hard, he became a world-wide known musician who will go down in history as a true artist.