Gloria Velez
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Gloria Velez (born December 18, 1978) is an American bikini model, former Hip Hop model, dancer, rap artist and actress who is a native of Long Island, New York. She is of Puerto Rican descent.
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[edit] Life
Velez knew what she wanted to be since she was a young girl, and, during her teenage years, she attended the John Casablancas modeling school, which led her to being signed by the Elite Modeling Agency.
Casablancas' school had a contract of exclusivity with Elite Models at the time, and Velez joined other models, such as Cindy Crawford, as a member of Elite. Gloria has also been linked romantically to several celebrities.
[edit] Employment
Velez started out in a series of videos entitled Luke's Freakshow. These videos contained sexually explicit scenes which include her stripping and performing lesbian acts with various other women. She currently claims these videos are being used as blackmail by former 2 Live Crew member Luther "Luke" Campbell, the film's producer, although he claims she used this to jump into the video industry.
She immediately began to work in the entertainment world, going on tour with *NSYNC and Sisqó. A newcomer with a feminist attitude (she once declared that men in the music industry were afraid of women "with brains", for example), Velez was still a schoolgirl, and she had to fly over to *NSYNC and Sisqó concert locations during weekends and free days when she wasn't on vacation.
Velez was influenced by Sisqó, *NSYNC and other singers, and soon, she began to pursue a career as a rap artist. She founded her own studio, and, soon enough, she was discovered by music executive Tyrone Fyffe, who signed her to his music company.
Most recently, Velez appeared on The Game's "Wouldn't Get Far" video.
[edit] Becoming a rapper
Soon after, Velez switched to Rodney Jerkins' Cash Money/Darkchild Imprint label, but, because of her earlier contract with Fyffe, a court case followed in which Fyffe tried to claim her back to his own label. Velez decided to end the problem by getting a release from both of her contracts, and she independently released her first CD, "Glory". "Glory" was preceeded by Velez's first promotional tour.
Not to lose touch with her beginnings in the entertainment world, she began posing with bikinis for magazines, and she has been featured on a number of publications. She was one of around 60 Hispanic models to be portrayed in a special issue of Blackmen, which was released in February 2005.
On that issue, she addressed a question that many non-Puerto Ricans ponder about Puerto Ricans born outside Puerto Rico, when she declared that "(she) was born in Long Island, (her parents) were born in New York, but (her) grandparents were born in Puerto Rico, so (she is) 100 percent Puerto Rican".
[edit] Plans
Velez's plans include releasing a DVD named "Doin Tha Damn Thing", keeping on working as a model for the national clothes chain, BellaHoney, and keeping her magazine modeling career on going.
