Gloria Estefan

Gloria Estefan was born in Cuba, and her family relocated to Miami, Florida, following the Cuban Revolution. Her father, a former Cuban soldier and bodyguard to Fulgencio Batista, later served in the U.S. military, participating in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and fighting in the Vietnam War, while her mother worked as a schoolteacher. Estefan attended St. Michael-Archangel School and Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Miami, and after her father's return from Vietnam and subsequent illness, she helped her mother care for him. She graduated from the University of Miami in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a minor in French, having also worked as a translator at Miami International Airport Customs Department during her studies. In 1976, she began a romantic relationship with Emilio Estefan, the band leader of Miami Sound Machine, and they married on September 1, 1978, marking the beginning of her professional music career.Estefan achieved widespread international acclaim as a singer, songwriter, and actress, becoming one of the top 100 best-selling music artists with an estimated 100 million records sold worldwide, including 31.5 million in the United States. She has been honored with seven Grammy Awards and is widely regarded as the most successful crossover performer in Latin music to date. Her personal life includes two children, son Nayib, born on September 2, 1980, and daughter Emily Marie, born on December 5, 1994. On March 20, 1990, Estefan was critically injured in a bus accident, an event from which she made a full recovery. The family resides in Miami Beach, Florida, and welcomed their first grandchild, Sasha Argento Estefan Coppola, on June 21, 2012.