Gloria Trevi
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| Gloria Trevi | ||
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 Gloria Trevi promotional picture
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| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Gloria de los Ángeles Treviño Ruiz | |
| Born | February 15, 1968 (age 39) | |
| Origin |  Monterrey, Nuevo León, México |
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| Genre(s) | Rock Pop |
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| Occupation(s) | singer, songwriter | |
| Instrument(s) | vocals | |
| Years active | 1980-present | |
| Website | www.gloriatrevi.net | |
Gloria Trevi (born Gloria de los Ángeles Treviño Ruiz, February 15, 1968 in Monterrey, Nuevo León) is a Mexican singer and songwriter.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Childhood
Trevi was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, to Manuel Treviño and Gloria Ruíz. 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.
[edit] Thirst for stardom
Gloria left her home city at the age of 12, arriving at Mexico City, where she met her future manager Sergio Andrade. 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 Mouths with Lipstick).
With Andrade's help, Trevi released her first album in 1989, ¿Qué Hago Aquí? (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 like stripping male members of her audience and so on. 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, she would end up crying when hosts and interviewers mentioned her childhood.
[edit] Mexican Pop singer
Trevi followed up her first record with the 1991 album Tu Angel De La Guardia (Your 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 as well as being with the Latino population in the El Monte California.
Although some of her lyrics bore heavy sexual references: direct or indirect, she also aimed at exposing hypocrites, addressing 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", an attack on the rich, or rather those who suck up to the rich, in the song she says she would "prefer to walk like a cat on all fours than be like the upper class", and knocks those trying to keep in fashion by saying she'd rather be white trash than stuck up(Prefiero ser naca que ser una tarada). 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 "Qué Bueno Que no fui Lady Di" ("Thank goodness I'm not Princess Diana") by saying Princess Diana is dull and cold hearted as she 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" ("Judgment"), as if love were 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.
Regarding technique, she utilizes background chorus and crazy antics complete with sounds. In "Dr. 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'm not going to scream") 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" ("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.
[edit] Scandal starts
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 could 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, 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.
For more information, check her book with her version of the facts : GLORIA (by Gloria Trevi).
[edit] Trevi is released
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, Cómo 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 and has not made a full reversion to what some people considered raunchy and wild concert antics with which she shocked Mexico in the 90s, Trevi has shown to be more passive and reflective at this time of her career.
Trevi is currently on a steady relationship with her boyfriend and father of his latest son, Miguel Armando.
[edit] Albums
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- ¿Qué hago aquí? (1989)
- Tu ángel de la guarda (1991)
- Me siento tan sola (1993)
- Más turbada que nunca([1994])
- Si me llevas contigo(1995)
- No soy monedita de oro(1996)
- Cómo nace el universo (2004)
- La Trayectoria(2006)
[edit] Chart Success
- 2006: "Todos Me Miran" Hot Latin Songs #7
- 2004: "En Medio De La Tempestad" Hot Latin Tracks #7
- 1993: "Con Los Ojos Cerrados" Hot Latin Tracks #6
- 1993: "Me Siento Tan Sola" Hot Latin Tracks #6
- 1992: "Que Voy A Hacer Sin El" Hot Latin Tracks #22
- 1991: "Pelo Suelto Hot Latin" Tracks #1
- 1991: "Tu Angel De La Guarda" Hot Latin Tracks #1
- 1990: "El Ultimo Beso" Hot Latin Tracks #36
[edit] Films
[edit] External Links
Gloria trevi official page for suenos atrevidos www.galeon.com/latrevi/
