Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. She is in the top 100 best selling music artists with an estimated 100 million records sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those in the United States alone. She has won seven Grammy Awards and is the most successful crossover performer in Latin music to date.
Prior to the Cuban Revolution, her father was a Cuban soldier and a bodyguard to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. The Fajardo family fled to Miami, Florida as a result of the Cuban Revolution and settled down there. Shortly after they moved to the United States, Gloria’s father joined the U.S. military and fought in the Vietnam War and moved to Houston, Texas, also having participated in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Gloria attended St. Michael-Archangel School and Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Miami. Her father became ill after returning from Vietnam and Gloria helped her mother, Gloria Fajardo, care for him. Her mother worked as a schoolteacher for the Dade County Public School system. Gloria Estefan graduated from college in 1979 with a B.A. in psychology, with a minor in French, from the University of Miami. When she was studying at the university, she worked as an English/Spanish/French translator at Miami International Airport Customs Department and, because of her language abilities, was once approached by the CIA as a possible employee. Estefan was raised Catholic.
Gloria became romantically involved with the Miami Sound Machine’s band leader, Emilio Estefan, in 1976. As she later revealed, “he was my first and only boyfriend.” She and Emilio married on September 1, 1978. They have a son, Nayib (born September 2, 1980) and a daughter, Emily Marie (born December 5, 1994). The family lives in the Star Island section of Miami Beach, Florida. On June 5, 2010 Nayib married Lara Diamante Coppola in the backyard of his parents’ mega mansion. On June 21, 2012 the first Estefan grandchild was born: grandson Sasha Argento Estefan Coppola.
Link to Wikipedia biography