Julio Iglesias Jr.

Early years

Julio José Iglesias-Preysler was born in Madrid, Spain, the son of Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and Filipina socialite and "Hola!" magazine journalist Isabel Preysler. He is the younger brother of Chabeli Iglesias and the older brother of Enrique Iglesias. His parents divorced in 1979; Iglesias Jr. and his siblings moved to Miami in the United States, to live with their father.

Iglesias Jr. went to college near San Francisco at Menlo College in Atherton, California. He won a chance to participate in NBC's Out of the Blue and he worked for the Travel Channel, where he hosted a travel show that took him to Latin America.

Career

Iglesias Jr. with the help of his friend and manager Darius Jordi Lassus first got into show business as a model. It was his manager that negotiated an exclusive male modeling agreement with Joey Hunter (at the time he was the president of the Male Model division) at the Ford Models Agency in New York. It was through Joey Hunter, that Iglesias Jr. was discovered by photographer Bruce Weber. He went on to campaign for Versace. Shortly after, Iglesias Jr. signed on with publicity executive Ruben Malaret whom began a press campaign to further gain exposure of Iglesias Jr. to the English speaking entertainment industry. Some of his notable accomplishments was his participation on Oprah Winfrey's talk show and was featured in an advertisement for Gap and he modeled for designer John Bartlett VII on Sixth Fashion Show.

He was offered two soap opera jobs, one at Televisa and one in the ABC soap, All My Children. Iglesias Jr. had also received an offer from the Producers of the Broadway show Grease to star as Danny, but decided to turn those jobs down because he wanted to focus on his music. Iglesias Jr. signed a recording agreement with Epic Records and he traveled to Miami where he began to record his first album, Under My Eyes, with Rodolfo Castillo. Released in 1999, the recording of this album took them to New York and Los Angeles, two songs released from this English language album are "One More Chance" and "Under My Eyes". Among promotional appearances for the album, Iglesias Jr. performed "One More Chance" at the Miss Universe 1999 Pageant and opened for Cher on her tour of North America. The album failed to gain success in the United States and soon after Iglesias Jr. departed from Epic Records.

Iglesias Jr. second album, Tercera Dimension, was released in 2003 on the Warner Music Group and featured Spanish pop rock songs with the singles "Los Demas" and "Dejame Volar". Both albums received public interest from the Hispanic media in the United States but attained minority success.

He worked for Hola Magazine, appearing in several photoshoots. More recently he has taken part in a series in Spain called Club de Flo, in which Spanish politicians and celebrities have to present a comedy routine. The show was unsuccessful and cancelled after several episodes. He has moved back to Spain and is living with his mother Isabel Preysler. He appeared on the Spanish version of Dancing with the Stars called "¡Mira quien baila!" but was voted out in the thirteenth week. He has played the lead role in a drama film entitled The Music of You directed by Lloyd DeSouza.

Iglesias Jr. was the winner of the CMT reality Television show Gone Country, in which artists from other genres of music lived together in a house in Nashville and competed to win a country music contract. His single "The Way I Want You" was released to country radio on March 10, 2008 and was produced by Gone Country host John Rich. Iglesias Jr. also appeared on the ABC TV show the superstars. He was partnered by a female soccer player, Brandi Chastain. They finished in fourth place in the competition.

In 2014, he joined the band Latin Lovers with Nuno Resende and Damien Sargue.

In 2015, he performed a concert (complete show) for the first time with his father Julio Iglesias in a tour in Romania, on 22 May at Sala Polivalentă in Cluj-Napoca and 2 July at Sala Palatului in the capital Bucharest.

Personal life

In October 1999, he legally changed his name from Julio José Iglesias to Julio Iglesias Jr.

In May 2011 Iglesias Jr. became engaged with Belgian topmodel Charisse Verhaert (born 1982) after 8 years of dating; the wedding took place on 3 November 2012 in Spain.

Discography

Albums

Singles