• Faith: Christian - Catholic
• Career: Musician
• Birthday:  September 01, 1957

Gloria Maria Milagrosa Fajardo Garcia, known professionally as Gloria Estefan, is an actress, singer, and businesswoman. She's an eight-time Grammy Award winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and has been named one of the top 100 greatest artists of all time by Billboard and VH1. Estefan's record sales exceed 100 million worldwide, making her one of the best-selling female singers of all time. Many of her songs became international chart-topping hits, including "1-2-3," "Don't Wanna Lose You,” "Coming Out of the Dark," and "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You."

Estefan started her career as the lead singer of Miami Latin Boys, which was later renamed Miami Sound Machine. She and Miami Sound Machine earned worldwide success with their 1985 single "Conga," which became Estefan's signature song and led to Miami Sound Machine winning their 15th annual Tokyo Music Festival's grand prix in 1986. In 1988, Estefan and Miami Sound Machine achieved their first number-one song with "Anything for You." In March 1990, the singer sustained a life-threatening cervical vertebrae fracture when her tour bus was involved in a severe accident near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

She underwent an emergency surgical stabilization of her cervical spine and post-surgical rehabilitation that lasted close to a year, but made a full recovery. A year later, in March 1991, she launched her comeback with an album and worldwide tour, "Into the Light." Estefan's 1993 Spanish-language album, "Mi Tierra," won the first of her three Grammys for Best Tropical Latin Album. The album was also the first Diamond album in Spain. She's been awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Las Vegas Walk of Fame. Estefan was a Kennedy Center Honors recipient in 2017 for her contributions to American cultural life. She won an MTV Video Music Award an American Music Award for Lifetime Achievement, and has been named BMI Songwriter of the Year.

Billboard has named Estefan the third Most Successful Latina and 23rd Greatest Latin Artist of all time in the U.S., based on both Latin albums and Latin song charts. Hailed as the "Queen of Latin Pop" by the media, Estefan has amassed 38 number-one hits across Billboard charts, including 15 chart-topping songs on the Hot Latin Songs chart.

What religion is Gloria Estefan?

Estefan was raised Catholic and attended Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Miami, where she was a National Honor Society member. While visiting the Vatican to participate in a TEDx conference on religious freedom, Estefan discussed how faith has always been a pillar in her life. She discussed her bus accident, saying, "When I was in that huge accident, I received a lot of prayers from around the world. I believe in God, and I will never be an atheist. The world is too beautiful to think that God does not exist."

After the accident, Estefan wrote the song "Coming Out of the Dark," a hit dedicated to God, in which she wanted to "thank all those who sent me their prayers and helped me recover." She said, "That song has a very religious meaning for me. It signifies the power of prayer and that we all have to help each other."