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GLORIA TREVI BIOGRAPHY |
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Gloria Trevi (born Gloria de los Ángeles Treviño Ruiz, February
15, 1970 in Monterrey, Nuevo León) is a Mexican rock singer (although
she dabbles in pop).
Trevi's life has been as controversial as her career as a singer
has been successful. The scandals and controversies surrounding
her have caused some people to nickname her The Madonna of
Mexico.
Trevi was born in a reportedly violent and impoverished home,
and she struggled to survive with the lack of food and money.
Her dreams of being an entertainer started early: Trevi began to
learn and recite poetry at age five. She later took piano and
ballet lessons. Trevi's parents divorced when she was 10. There
have been allegations that her mother mistreated her and tried
to discourage her from being a singer. The veracity of those
rumors, however, is not clear -- and is undermined somewhat by
the fact that Trevi's mother has publicly pleaded for her
daughter to change her wild ways.
Gloria left her home city at the age of 12, arriving at Mexico
City, where she met the also controversial manager Sergio
Andrade, alleged child molester and slave master. Before meeting
Andrade, she worked singing and dancing on the streets for spare
change, as well as teaching aerobics and serving tacos at a taco
stand. In 1985, she was a member of a short-lived girl group
named Boquitas Pintadas (Little Colored Mouths).
With Andrade's help, Trevi released her first album in 1989, ¿Y
Qué Hago Aquí? (And What Am I Doing Here?). The album scored an
instant number one hit for her, Dr. Psiquiatra (Dr. Psychiatrist),
and four other songs from that album climbed the charts as well.
She soon became known as a challenger to the machismo ideas of
many of Mexico's men, breaking social standards and taking a
feminist stand point on many of her songs, while exploring
sexuality in a way that not many female Mexican entertainers had
done before her. She would go out of her way to taunt social
conservatives, engaging in antics such as wearing a bandolier of
condoms across her bare chest and stripping male members of her
audience. Despite the way she carried herself on stage, she was
also able to become very popular among Mexican and Latin
American children. At that point of her career, it became common
for many little girls and teenaged females to dress like
Gloria's concert attire.
Trevi, however, also showed herself to the public as a girl who
could break down and cry at any minute and about anything. Many
times during television interviews, the talkshow host would
mention her childhood, and she would go from acting happy to
spilling her tears from one minute to the next.
Trevi followed up her first record with the 1991 album Angel De
La Guardia (Guardian Angel), which became even more successful
than the first one. Her song Pelo Suelto (Loose Hair) became her
most widely known hit, reaching number one all over Latin
America and for the Latino population in the United States.
Much of her work is chock full of disguised sexual references,
amid fiery true to the heart lyrics aimed at exposing hypocrites,
taking aim at the upper class, hunger, prostitution, religion,
war deaths, issues few wanted to confront in Mexico at that
time, which made her quite a few enemies, including many in the
Mexican government. In A Gatas, This whole song is basically an
attack on the rich, or rather those who suck up to the rich, and
that she would "prefer to walk like a cat on all fours than be
like the upper class", that she knocks those trying to keep in
fashion by saying she'd rather be (Prefiero ser naca que ser una
tarada) "rather be white trash than stuck up"...She goes on to
trash those who suck up to people with fancy last names (the
rich)...commenting they are involved in drug trafficking. She
also takes aim at the rich in "Que Bueno Que no fui Lady Di" (Thank
goodness I'm not Princess Diana) by saying Princess Diana is
dull and cold hearted as sucks up to the royal family, and how
royals intermarry their relatives as if they were animals, and
that she'd happy being a nobody. She plays a mock court trial
for those who were truly in love, but who were indecent in
Juicio, as it love was a crime. Many of her songs have
references to raggedy clothes or shoes as in "Zapatos Viejos" (Old
Shoes). In other songs, she talks of children screaming in shops
that they are penniless, or screaming out the window how lonely
she is, or that her blood boils every time she meets a man that
was chosen for her against her will, or entering the church,
getting on her knees and (again, screaming) refusing to repent
for her sins, or screaming to the psychiatrist (Psiquiatra) that
she is not insane but quite desperate to live her own life.
Examples of sexual references include Angel De La Guardia is a
idiom for condom in Mexico. "Mas Turbada Que Nunca" is a thinly
disguised for "Masturbada" (masturbated). "Enamorados de la
Mano" means Lovers of the Hand or again, masturbation.
Regarding technique, she utilizes background chorus and crazy
antics complete with sounds. In Psiquiatra she starts the song
with bottles of glass breaking. In one of her songs she bangs on
a piano as if she was crazy. In another song, she makes a
crunchy sound of "breaking her hair". In most of her songs, she
shouts incessantly...except in Hoy no voy a Gritar (Today I am
not going to shout) where she becomes silent for the young
children who have died who were forced into being soldiers for
war.
Trevi then filmed a movie, also named Pelo Suelto. In it, she
participated with fellow wild living former world boxing
champion Jorge Paez. The movie became a number one hit, and
Gloria was invited to tour in many countries. In 1992, she began
a tour all over the Caribbean and South America, which took her
to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Venezuela and
Chile. She also released her first calendar, which was
considered by many of her fans and critics to be very suggestive
and sexually oriented. Meanwhile, she kept talking in public
about such things as teen sex, abortion, drugs, AIDS,
prostitution, panhandling and anything that came into her mind.
Her third album, Me Siento Tan Sola (I Feel so Lonely), was
released in 1993, and it garnered her another hit, Zapatos
Viejos (My Old Shoes). The album was taped in Los Angeles.
Gloria released a new calendar, which was even more suggestive
than the first one. Then, her second movie, also named like her
song, Zapatos Viejos, was released.
Trevi became more reclusive after that. For years, all that was
heard about her were rumors and speculation. But then, in 1995,
Sergio Andrade's former wife published a book about how Andrade
allegedly would pick up teenaged girls and lure them into a web
of sex and slavery by promising to make them superstars.
According to the book, named De La Gloria Al Infierno (From
Glory to Hell), Trevi was also a willing participant of
Andrade's scams, and she had fallen in love with her manager,
supposedly participating in his manager's sexual orgies and
slavery acts with the teenaged girls just to please him.
Around 1997, many of the girls who were allegedly abused escaped
from Andrade and exposed on television stories of horror and
violence. Andrade and Trevi flew out of Mexico without being
captured, stopping in Spain and Chile before they were declared,
along with a third accomplice named Mary Boquitas, as fugitives
of the Mexican judicial system. Soon after, Karina Yapor, a girl
from northern Mexico, gave birth to a baby boy she alleged to be
Andrade's son. By this time, Trevi, Boquitas and Andrade were
the talk of every Spanish tabloid television show in the United
States, and most of Latin America. Trevi, Andrade and the rest
of their 'troop' soon escaped to Argentina, where the remaining
girls escaped and were soon flown to Mexico. But before Trevi,
Andrade and Boquitas were caught, they escaped to Brazil, where
they were able to live for a couple of years, until they were
finally caught by Brazilian police and arrested. In Brazil,
Trevi allegedly enjoyed walking around the neighborhood where
she resided, eating at a local bakery every day. When they were
caught, the news quickly spread to Spanish speaking people
everywhere.
A legal battle ensued because Brazilian prosecutors wanted them
charged there, but Mexican prosecutors claimed that the three
prisoners belonged to them because they had begun their
practices while still in Mexico. Trevi, Andrade and Boquitas
were flown from their original jail to another facility because
of overcrowding. Soon after, a tape where Trevi can be heard
singing songs (allegedly to Andrade) on the plane ride became
public. In the song, which didn't seem to be a written song but
one she was making up, she talks of how she'd done everything
for the love of a man.
In the new jail facility, Trevi became pregnant. She initially
accused a jail guard of raping her, supposedly causing the
pregnancy. But, after giving birth to a baby boy, she admitted
the boy was Andrade's son. She was released under a Brazilian
law that allows women who give birth while prisoners to live in
a house with their children, but her new freedom was brief,
because once again, Mexican authorities began to ask for her, so
she had to be taken back to jail.
Brazil's authorities came to an agreement with Mexican
authorities and, on December 21, 2002 they extradited Trevi,
Andrade and Boquitas to Mexico so they can face charges there.
Her baby ended up living with his grandmother, Trevi's mother.
There were allegations also that, while fugitive, Trevi
supposedly gave birth to a baby girl of Andrade, and that they
left the baby to die. However, no body or evidence were found,
so they were not charged with homicide. (Trevi would later admit
in a comic strip that she does not know of the whereabouts of
this daughter.)
On November 27 of 2003, Andrade was jailed in the same facility
as Trevi, but they were not allowed contact with each other.
On February 24, 2004, Trevi was expecting to be set free by
Mexico's justice system, but was denied freedom at the time.
After she learned that she would not be allowed to go free, she
began a hunger strike.
On September 21, 2004, Trevi was acquitted and set free by a
Mexican court, citing a lack of evidence in the case. She had
spent nearly five years incarcerated in Brazil and Mexico.
Upon her release from prison, Trevi quickly hit the studio,
recording her latest album, Como nace el universo (How the
universe was born), which scored decent success in the United
States, being certified gold. She subsequently embarked upon a
nation-wide tour titled "Trevolution", but it was briefly
post-poned due to an unexpected pregnancy. The tour was resumed
in Phoenix, Arizona.
Although she is still an energetic performer, Trevi has not made
a full reversion to her raunchy, obscene, and wild concert
antics with which she shocked Mexico in the 90s (though she did
grab her crotch in one of the concerts of her Trevolution tour). |
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