Enrique Iglesias talks ahead of Birmingham show with Beverley Knight
Enrique Iglesias is the King of Latin Pop. Having signed a $68 million record deal and sold more than 170 million records, he’s in a league of his own.
Enrique is back with a tour that visits Birmingham’s Genting Arena tomorrow. And fans can look forward to a greatest hits set.
It’s not easy for Enrique, the son of Julio, to juggle family life with a life on the road. He’s the partner of former Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova, who has been the world’s number one player in previous year. With Martina Hingis as her partner, she won Grand Slam titles in Australia in 1999 and 2002, and the WTA Championships in 1999 and 2000 and they referred to themselves as the Spice Girls of Tennis.
Enrique and Anna had twins in December 2017, and he says they bring him great joy. “It’s incredible to keep babies smiling and laughing. If you can get both of them at the same time it’s rare. Usually one is crying and the other one is laughing. When you get both of them giggling and smiling and paying attention it’s incredible. It makes your day. It makes your week.
“I’ve realised that the dad is there to support. The mums are the heroes. It’s a tough job. I don’t know how mums do it to tell you the truth. In my case, when I watch Anna and the way she takes care of our babies, and how she is with the babies, it’s inspiring. It’s beautiful.”
Enrique does all he can to be a supportive partner.
“For me honestly it feels surreal to be a dad. They’re only eight months so sometimes I wake up and I’m like: ‘Oh, s***. I forgot. I have kids. I have babies. Don’t forget – you’re a dad now. Don’t do anything stupid’.”
Everything changes when you become a parent and Enrique says his life has turned upside down.
“Definitely but part of it is making sure you still do the things that you love. Knowing at the back of your mind you have to be more responsible, and there might be things you’re not able to do, but it doesn’t mean your life has to change drastically. And if it does change, it’s for the better.”
It’s tough between work schedules and being parents to make time for date nights. But Iglesias manages to keep his relationship on track.
“What is that? I’m kidding. It’s not easy between work and schedules and babies right now but we definitely do. We’re juggling everything the best that we can. We make our mistakes but we learn as we go along.”
He’s not sure that Anna and the babies will join him on tour because he doesn’t want them to be disrupted and he also wants to focus on giving the fans a great time.
“I’m not touring so, so much this year. That’s why the shows that I’m doing I feel so grateful for. I want to make sure I concentrate on places, for example the UK. When it came up I was like: ‘I have to go to the UK because it’s been too many years’. To me four years is way too long and it shouldn’t be. It’s too much time in between shows. At the same time the same thing happens with different places that you haven’t been to in a while. The UK I have always visited, especially touring, two years, three years max.”
Aside from music, Enrique has a restaurant called Zela in London with Cristiano Ronaldo and Rafael Nadal. They’re into their third year together and he enjoys having different challenges.
“I love food. It all started with Spanish food with Rafael then from that we went to Zela, which is more Asian fusion but still with a bit of a Spanish flavour. The right people came along that I trusted with how they work. They’re open to everything we have to say and are involved. It was fun and nothing to do with music so I thought it would be a different thing to do. I met Ronaldo in Manchester. The first time I ever met him was back in 2008. He’s passionate about the restaurant. He got involved about a year and a half ago.”
Enrique already has plans beyond the tour and hopes to get back into the studio to make more new music.
“I definitely want to keep on doing shows. I’m in the studio right now, writing as much as possible. I always think: ‘I don’t know how many albums I have left in me to make’. I do want to make sure that this one that I realise, hopefully in 2019, is good and that I’m satisfied with it. Hopefully I get to that point. I do it one day at a time. I try to enjoy it. I don’t know if in 2019 I’m going to be touring or not or what’s going to happen. I try to enjoy where I am right now in my life and take it one step at a time and enjoy every single day. I never really plan so far ahead. If you ask me what I’m going to be doing six months from now, I dunno.”
