Biography of Enrique Iglesias

Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler (born 8 May 1975) is a Spanish singer and songwriter. He started his recording career in the mid-1990s on the Mexican indie label Fonovisa and became the bestselling Spanish-language act of the decade. By the turn of the millennium, he made a successful crossover into the mainstream English-language market. He signed a multi-album deal with Universal Music Group for US$68 million with Universal Music Latino to release his Spanish albums and Interscope Records to release English albums.

Iglesias was born in Madrid, Spain, the third and youngest child of Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and Filipina socialite and magazine journalist Isabel Preysler. His father Julio is recognized as the most commercially successful continental European singer in the world. Iglesias was raised with two older siblings, Chabeli and Julio Jr. One of his mother's aunts is actress Neile Adams, the first wife of American actor Steve McQueen, mother of actor Chad McQueen, and grandmother of actor Steven R. McQueen.His father's family is from Galicia and Andalusia; his father also claims some Jewish and Puerto Rican ancestry on his mother's side.

Iglesias found out later in life that he was born with a rare congenital condition known as situs inversus, where some of the body's major organs, such as the heart, are situated on the opposite side of the body from where they would normally be located.

At first, Iglesias and his two siblings stayed with their mother; however, in December 1981, Iglesias' grandfather Dr. Julio Iglesias Puga was kidnapped by the armed Basque group ETA. When Enrique was six years old he lived for a year in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade with his mother.

For their safety, Enrique and his brother Julio were sent to live with their father and his girlfriend at the time, Venezuelan model Virginia Sipli, in Miami. There, they were brought up mostly by the nanny, Elvira Olivares, to whom Enrique later dedicated his first album.

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