María Celeste Arrarás
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María Celeste Arrarás is a famous Puerto Rican television reporter and budding actress.
The daughter of politician Jose Enrique Arraras, she was born on September 22, 1961 in Mayagüez. She attended the Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana where she majored in communications.
She joined Puerto Rico's television as a reporter and her work got the attention of Univision executives, who hired her to anchor their news show, Primer Impacto, job which she held for many years until moving in 2002 to Telemundo USA to perform as anchor woman in another news show, Al Rojo Vivo con Maria Celeste, later shortened to Al Rojo Vivo.
When she was signed to work for Primer Impacto, she had to move permanently to Miami, Florida.
Arrarás is also a writer and her investigative works include El Secreto De Selena, where she investigated details of the death of Tejano music singer Selena Quintanilla, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Cruelty, where she investigates the way some entertainment entities treat their animals.
She has also interviewed many Presidents and other people of note, including Yolanda Saldívar, the woman accused and convicted of murdering Quintanilla.
She made her acting debut in November of 2002 in two episodes of the soap opera Passions, where she played herself.
In April of 2003, singer Ricky Martin gave Arrarás the first exclusive interview he has done in Spanish in two years. On May of that year, she was honored with the revealing of a plaque with her name and hand-prints on it, in Mexico City's Paseo de los Grandes (Walk of the Great Ones).
She has made professional mistakes as well. Since NBC owns Telemundo they thought it would be a good idea for Arraras to be a panelist for a debate during the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries. She mistakenly referred to Dennis Kucinich as senator instead of congressman and he had to correct her.
On March of 2004, the gossip magazine ran a story about María Celeste filing for divorce from her husband, Manny Arvesu, and an interview where her fellow Telemundo star Laura Bozzo expressed dislike of her. This was published shortly after Arrarás attended the wedding of her friend Lucia Mendez in Mexico. Arrarás declared that attending the wedding while in the middle of her own marital crisis was hard for her.
Arrarás has three children. She has two children with her ex-husband, son Julian and daughter Lara Giuiliana. She also was one of the first Latina celebrities to adopt a child from the many orphanages in Eastern Europe. She adopted a one-year old Russian boy named Vadim in 2000.
On Friday, June 23, 2006 María Cleste became the first Telemundo star to co-host NBC's Today Show. She continued this again on Friday, July 7, 2006 and Sunday July 30, 2006.
Maria was a 2006 Miss Universe judge.
Maria Celeste Arraras has become the latest Hispanic celebrity mom to be a part of the Hispanic got Milk? campaign in January 2007 as part of the "Think About Your Drink" campaign.
