Gloria Estefan
Gloria Estefan is an undisputed legend and global superstar. As a musician, she is a three-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter with three dozen number one hits, has toured the world six times, and has a biographical Broadway musical based on her life and hits called On Your Feet. As an actress, she has starred in iconic shows such as Glee and Jane the Virgin and continues to act, with a new film coming out later this year. She is a children's book author, consummate businesswoman, almost CIA translator, wife, and mother. In the 80s and 90s, her groundbreaking career made Latin music part of mainstream pop culture and was essential in helping the next generation of Latin artists, such as Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, achieve massive crossover success.
Born in Havana, Cuba, Gloria fled at the age of two with her family from the Cuban Revolution to Miami. At seventeen, she met her husband, Emilio, and joined his band, which later became the iconic Miami Sound Machine and according to Spotify, she has sold over 100 million records worldwide. Since then, she has become a beloved cultural fixture and continues raising the bar in the entertainment industry.
Meeting Gloria in 2019 at the 40th Annual New York Women in Film and Television Muse Awards, I was blown away by her openhearted, unguarded kindness. Security guards at the event were trying to keep people away from her, and there she was, pushing security away so she could greet her fans. Meeting her, it's clear she is thoughtful, self-aware, and deliberately present with those around her. Recently, I had the joy of reuniting and speaking with her over Zoom.
Fame and Celebrity Status
As a global tour-de-force and armed with decades of renown and continued accomplishments, Gloria Estefan has remained astonishingly down-to-earth. And though she was positively labeled a "Diva" circa 1998 for the iconic Divas Live concert on VH1 alongside Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, and Shania Twain, she has the least diva-like personality, often shying away from the spotlight that follows her. She sees her celebrity as a byproduct of her love of music:
"Celebrity is an interesting thing. It's not the reason I ever got into music because I didn't like being the center of attention, so for me, I had to get used to that part, but I have the opportunity to make a life doing what I love, which is living my life making music."
Gloria focuses on music's power to connect rather than getting sucked into the trappings of fame:
"Having music reach out to other people is a blessing and a privilege that I don't take lightly because…other people's music got me through some of the toughest moments of my life, and with that of course comes the fame element. [I] never follow myself, I never Google myself, I never read anything that comes out. I like to take the experience…and keep that in my heart."
When asked about whether she experiences stage fright as a self-proclaimed shy person, she says smaller venues and performing for family is more of a challenge:
"It's much easier to do a stadium with 20,000 people because it's almost a mass of anonymity but those small gigs are rough."
Gloria doesn't compare her vocal abilities with her fellow "divas" such as Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, knowing exactly what her strengths are:
"I'm a songwriter. Sometimes a melody takes my heart and twists it into a ball in combination with the harmonies…sometimes I'm writing a melody [and] that note is super important for me. [Music] that just shows off vocal skills is not my wheelhouse. I love a good melody and I love to sing it the way it is...Hats off to those amazing singers like Aretha and Mariah and Celine that are honestly amazing vocalists...[but what] people might like about my style is that there's a lot of emotional honesty and my music is very much cathartic to me and...healing, so I sing from my heart and I know that I connect with people in my own way, so I don't have a problem sharing the stage."
Gloria says she does not Google herself, but appreciates seeing her music and influence referenced in pop culture on TV shows such as Schitt's Creek, Parks and Rec, and The Goldbergs. She says, "Writers for these shows, they're very careful…because they want as many people to get the joke as possible, so I always get a real chuckle out of [seeing any reference to me or my music]."
And though she does not chase fame, she does enjoy connecting with fans on social media. Estefan observes, "Inevitably when you read [published interviews] it's always being interpreted by the writer …I have the opportunity to put out messages unedited and I get to talk directly to people that have loved me for decades and have been supportive for so long and they're important to me, so I'm very maternal towards them." As a former student of psychology, she admits fans come to her with problems and she enjoys answering those seeking advice through DMs.
One of her most devoted fans, Ingrid Vogel, shared with Forbes what Gloria Estefan means to her:
"I'm from the former East Berlin and Gloria's Into The Light concert 1991 was my first concert in a free Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the years I got to know her more and more. I even met her several times in many countries after her concerts. I love her music... and especially her as a human being. I got in contact with her through DM on Twitter and she gave and gives me [great advice]. I love her because she is my inspiration for many years, she [makes] me feel like family when I speak with her and she gives the best hugs!"
Gloria admits that Ingrid helps her as well, reminding her of important dates and birthdays. Estefan's genuine appreciation of her fans seems to be a contributing factor to her longevity as an artist.
Current Projects
In addition to her celebrated music, Gloria continues to act. Just this summer, she finished filming the remake of the beloved classic comedy Father of the Bride and Vivo, Sony Pictures' first animated movie musical starring Lin-Manuel Miranda. She says about her upcoming projects, "We spent months in Atlanta [filming Father of the Bride] so excited for that! We all got along so great, we really created a kind of family there and had a blast… I did the animated film Vivo, which I loved...fortunately, because of COVID [delays]. And when [Lin-Manuel Miranda] sent me the song I go, "Oh, I gotta find a way to do this. This song is amazing!" Vivo is out on Netflix and Father of the Bride will be released sometime in 2022.
Gloria is looking forward to more acting roles, but is selective and always mindful of the legacy she wants to leave behind. She says:
"Yes, I absolutely want to [act more], I just want …the right role. They've sent me a lot of roles through the years, a lot of which I've said no because I carry baggage from my other careers, so I'm very cognizant about the type of role I do. How is it going to [represent] Latinas or women? Is it worth it? I don't need to prove anything, I just want to do projects that are going to be fun and that are going to in some way make me grow as an actor or put forth something that's worth it for me to take that risk. I do enjoy it very much and love [that] I'm older now, so I get good character roles where you don't have to be worried about [being objectified]."
New Music
In addition to her recent acting roles, she also performed with one of her favorite music legends, Nat King Cole, posthumously on his latest holiday release. She, along with Calum Scott, Kristin Chenoweth, John Legend, and Johnny Mathis recorded a Christmas album of duets with Cole. She beams, "It was such a privilege because he's [been] my favorite since I was a kid. He transports me. I still listen to Nat King Cole a lot." You can listen to their single here. Nonetheless, Gloria continues to be methodical in wading through opportunities, even if it's the biggest stage in the world.
Saying No To The Super Bowl
Gloria Estefan knows when to protect her boundaries and takes a lot of consideration before making commitments. This is evident by her turning down an ask to perform at the Super Bowl Half-time show in 2020 with Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, which would have been her record-breaking fourth time.
On her decision not to perform, she says:
"When you've gotten the opportunity to do something…you know that every time you do it again it's a bigger risk… It was also heading into the holidays that I hadn't been able to enjoy because I've been traveling for two years straight with On Your Feet and I thought okay I'm going to do this in January, that means December you are on a mission which turns the holidays into a challenge and…no eating and enjoying. I did it at two great points in my life and these two women are … sex symbols and it's a different vibe...it was their moment to shine. They kicked ass. That was an amazing show."
And despite turning down the world's biggest stage, Gloria Estefan hasn't slowed down.
She says, "Girl, I am busier [than ever] and through COVID good Lord…I wrote a song, We Needed Time and I shot a video for it during COVID. I wrote Put On Your Mask and did a PSA that I shot in my office on a green screen with my assistant." Put On Your Mask was a parody PSA of her song Get On Your Feet, and many may not know that Gloria's hidden talent is parodying her own songs.
Aside from her self-produced projects, she has taken on her most vulnerable role yet. This year, Gloria, along with her daughter, Emily, and niece, Lili, began hosting their own Red Table Talk: the Estefans on Facebook, where the hosts and their guests discuss vulnerable and vital topics such as racism, toxic masculinity, honest conversations around marriage, and Emily's own journey of coming out to her family. Gloria jokingly comments on the "tell-all" nature of the show, "If my mom was alive, there's no way I'd be doing this show, no way because it would kill her and I don't want to be guilty of murdering my mother!" Red Table Talk can be watched on Facebook and new episodes are released every Thursday.
Gloria's Spirituality and Accident
On March 20th 1990, at the height of her fame, Gloria was in a nearly fatal bus accident. She describes the day, "I only had had one day off [on tour] and Emilio had finagled me to going to a dinner in New York for a big Sony honcho that I did not want to do…what I wanted to do was to go to Syracuse and go sleep for a day…he says, 'It's important, we should go.' So, we went and he asked me, 'Would you rather hire a limo instead of taking the bus, we could get there…faster,' and I said, 'You know I probably feel safer on a bus,' were my final words…So, we're on the [bus], and I fell asleep and I felt the bus stop, and I thought, 'Oh we must be there,'...and the minute I opened my eyes, it was like an explosion."
They met President George H.W. Bush the day before and her first thought was "Uh oh, did somebody put a bomb on the [bus]?" Although Emilio and her son Nayib survived the accident relatively unscathed, Gloria sustained injuries to her spinal cord and was taken to a nearby hospital. Sadly, the hospital lacked the proper medical equipment and doctors to help her. Instead, then Sony exec Tommy Mottola came to Gloria's aid:
"They found Tommy Mottola, who was great, he was the head of Sony at the time [and he] found the top doctor in the US, [the doctor] flew to me and said, 'I will prepare your body, but you can't stay here. If you stay here, we're not gonna be able to do what you need to do.' So, he packaged up my body in [whatever] way he could. I signed a few autographs on the way out…laying on my back because I was in a neck brace…They probably thought ‘We’ll never see her again!’’’
On her prospects of recovery, Gloria recalls the doctor saying he wasn't promising anything but shared he had seen miracles in his own family: "He told me 'It's up to you.'"
She concluded, "Okay…if it's up to me, then I'm going to be okay. But my family thought I was in denial and I wasn't accepting the prognosis and I kept telling them 'Listen, I know its hard for you to believe this, but I'm telling you I'm going to be okay.'"
During one moving episode of Red Table Talk, Gloria spoke candidly about her accident, its impact on her Faith and feeling the power of prayer. She shares with Forbes:
"I don't like dogma, so even though I was raised Catholic, I don't like that part of it, but I've always been very spiritual...I've always felt connected to the All, God, the spirit, the creator that made everything."
Gloria's father, Jose (for whom she served as caretaker), had M.S. and a slew of issues stemming from exposure to Agent Orange in the 60s, spending much of his later years in a wheelchair. Following the accident, Gloria spent many months with virtually no mobility. The turning point in her recovery came months later:
"I'll never forget, it was close to four or five months up to the accident that I was able to lift my leg high enough and swing my arms low enough to put on my underwear by myself."
She reflects on the accident and her recovery's greater purpose:
"I never looked for fame, I just did music and it came with it, maybe this [accident] is the whole reason that I became famous, I have the opportunity to show people that you can go through something horrendous and you can come out on the other side and it all depends on how much effort and discipline and hard work [you put in]… because I busted my butt and when I stepped on that stage again on March 1st of 1991, 20 days shy of a year, it was the most euphoric feeling I have ever and probably will ever…experience and it felt like I had climbed Mount Everest,...it was a year of constant effort and focusing on a goal and recording an album." During her recovery, Gloria made peace with whatever outcome, "because I knew at least I could write and sing."
And while this is an exceptional outcome for those with spinal cord injuries, Gloria was determined to push herself: "I'm going to fight my hardest to come back and it was so worth it."
Gloria is a survivor and is undeniably candid about sharing her pain to help others. She also admitted on Red Table Talk to contemplating suicide as a teen. Her advice to somebody at their lowest point is:
"I would say the worst thing they could do is give in to impulsivity or the momentary feeling … I've lived quite a few difficulties and nothing is as horrible in the long run as it seems in the moment. We think we're not strong enough, you want to throw in the towel, [but] there's always something to be gleaned, something to strengthen us from every difficulty that we experience, there's always something to learn and I think that's what [we're] here for. To me this is just like school and we're here for lessons and lessons are very often not fun. So, I would say dig into that amazing connectivity that you have with the All...we don't realize it and we're all so incredibly connected and the energy that we put out or that we allow in is going to multiply and will rebound off of you. So, whenever I have my lowest moments, I sit down and I open up my chakra at the top of my head and I imagine warm light…going through my body and flushing it out and connecting to everything…connecting to love because to me, that's where we're all from. Love. and we're all just here to learn unconditionally how to share it, which is hard."
On Relationship with Emilio and Motherhood
Gloria met her husband Emilio when she was just 17 and they have been married for over four decades. They have not only produced and performed music together, they also built their hotels, restaurants, recording studio, and raised their two children, Nayib and Emily. She recalls that although her and Emilio were both incredibly busy while their children were young, they both prioritized spending as much time with them as they could. Nayib was often on the road with them on tour and Gloria remembers when Emily was younger, "[Emilio] would prepare Emily's lunch…if he needed to step [into parenting duties] he would. If I was on stage and he needed to take over watching our son [he would]." She does admit that above being a musician and artist, she always wanted to be a mother. She says, "I'm a mommy. That was my number one. As a little girl I had a book about babies….all I wanted to be was a mom so, that's my number one priority job of all the things that I do."
On Writing from the Heart(break)
Though Gloria and Emilio may seem to have a fairytale relationship, she is known for writing heart wrenching ballads. How does Gloria access and translate feelings of [heartbreak] when happily married?
Estefan explains, "[I'm] happily married, but not dead, girl….marriage is a commitment, but you go through a gazillion emotions…and challenges, so that's what an artist does….If not, it's not real. And people can, in a second, spot something fake. Sometimes a little grain or a seed that gets sparked by a thought or a fight or an argument, or something that happens, as a writer, I give it free reign to grow and evolve into its own piece, so I have written a lot of things in my life but it doesn't mean I haven't felt them, if I wrote about them I felt them at some point."
Estefan points to her hit Words Get In The Way as an example of a universal issue that many experience:
"When we're talking emotions or feelings, we're just loving each other, but when the words start, because a word can mean one thing to me and another thing to you, I mean look at it now with social media we're seeing it's like a hotbed of contention [because] you can't read intention, you can't read inflection, it's like people will read it in their own vocabulary…As the artist, that's our job, to give everyone else words for their feelings when they might not be able to come up with them and something that'll hit you in the gut and give you a catharsis to cry it out ...or just get you through a moment."
Losing Loved Ones
Estefan experienced a huge loss last year during the pandemic. Her long time friend and president of Estefan Enterprises, Frank Amadeo, passed away very suddenly. She shares:
"It was so awful, we still can't wrap our heads around that. That was the most devastating and unexpected blow. He was like my brother, he was my family. He's been with us 30 some years... We had a drive-in funeral for Frank and we made a film for him. I know he's working from the other side, I feel him. On Red Table, if you look over my shoulder, a picture of him and his dog [is] on a table behind me."
When talking about grief and loss, she admits, "You don't get over it, you move forward…, and then it gets to a point when you can remember, like my mom [who] I lost four years ago, the first two to three years were brutal, but after a while, I talk to her everyday, I feel her close to me, she's just as alive in me even though I can't physically go hug her… I still feel her presence and … she's constantly sending me messages so I feel her. And that's how I feel Frank, he's still holding on, toughing it out."
Everyone knows Gloria Estefan is a class act who has endured many challenges, but what they may not know is that she has a riotous sense of humor, and that it is essential to her resilience:
"My sense of humor has gotten me through the toughest moments. I joked around with the doctors when they were operating on me. I said, 'Can't you add a couple vertebrae in there, and he goes… 'No,'...and I go, 'At least stuff me with rice and beans.' We were kidding around. You gotta laugh through it, it's such a blessing to be able to not take things so incredibly seriously and it gets you through tough moments."
With such a wealth of life experience Gloria Estefan would seemingly have already written a memoir. Having had success as a children's book author, she agrees and says she wants to write a memoir herself. After her last world tour in 2008, Gloria thought she would finally have time to write her book, but she's never stopped being in demand. However, it is something she still looking forward to doing.
Legacy and Mortality
Both Gloria and Emilio have been thinking long-term since the beginning of their careers and the legacy they wish to leave. She says, "Emilio and I have always looked forward and far into the future. We haven't ever made the decision that was just good for us in the moment, because you can fall into a lot of traps that way. And we've had to turn down amazing things that would have been a lot of money because we didn't think it was the right thing for the legacy for our kids, [and] for our grandson."
Mortality and the the post-COVID world has also made her more active and present: "I just try to not put off anything because we've lost so many people in these last two years [during COVID who] really shouldn't be gone. …I think their message would be, "Live your life in every moment and do [the] best you can, be kind to as many people as you can, reach your hand out, [and] help somebody feel included." On inclusion she says:
"[We have to] keep trying…because social media is such a bastion of hatred... let's find ways to fix [the dark side of social media], let's find [solutions], to be there, because there are so many good things that come from it."
Estefan has a refreshingly strong sense of responsibility toward others. She says:
"I came to be of service, I'm a Virgo, very grounded, and that's my happy place, to be of service in any way possible…kindness is the most important thing to me, and…what we can offer each other, because we're all in this together, we're all sharing these experiences with whatever tools we came [into this life] with and whatever circumstances [we've had]."
Gloria Estefan is a living testament that though the world tries to make us hard, and separate us, we can choose to stay open and connected. We can choose to stay loving, humble and forgiving. Gloria, in her personal struggles and in fame, has every reason to be guarded, but she has chosen to do the work to stay immensely powerful, yet soft and openhearted. And as one of the biggest stars on the planet, Gloria Estefan still remains unwaveringly grounded and palpably grateful. With poise, she shows us, one can be world-famous and still prioritize family, remain genuine and true to your highest self, all while creating a global legacy that has touched generations.
