President-elect Enrique Peña Nieto is famed for his good looks, but his celebrity wife is just as likely to turn heads. Meet Mexico’s glamorous new First Lady: soap star Angelica Rivera.
Rivera, 41, is Mexico’s answer to Carla Bruni, the popular singer married to former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
She succeeds President Felipe Calderon’s wife Margarita Zavala, who campaigned for educational reform during her husband’s term in office. While Rivera may bring glamor to Los Pinos, she is unlikely to share her predecessor’s enthusiasm for politics.
Rivera began her career at the age of 17, appearing in the video for Luis Miguel’s 1987 smash hit “Ahora Te Puedes Marchar.” Four years later she duetted with then-unknown singer Ricky Martin in the band “Muñecos de Papel.”From 1989 to 2010 Rivera starred in a series of “telenovelas” (soap operas) and became best known for her role as “La Gaviota” in 2007’s “Destilando Amor.” The show was a big hit on Televisa, the same T.V. network controversially accused of providing her husband with favorable coverage throughout the election.
Rivera met Peña Nieto in 2008, when he was serving as governor of the State of Mexico. The couple married in Toluca in November 2010.
Rivera has three daughters from a previous marriage with producer Jose Alberto Castro, and she is now step-mother to Peña Nieto’s three children, born during his marriage to Monica Pretelini, who died of a mysterious illness in 2007.
Peña Nieto has also acknowledged fathering two children outside of his marriages.