Mayte Garcia

Mayte Garcia
Garcia, 2013.
Born Mayte Jannell Garcia
(1973-11-12) November 12, 1973
Fort Rucker, Alabama, U.S.
Nationality American
Education General H. H. Arnold High School
Occupation
  • dancer
  • singer
  • actress
  • animal activist
Years active 1990–present
Spouse(s)
Prince
(m. 1996; div. 2000)
Children 2

Mayte Jannell Garcia (/ˈmaɪteɪ/; born November 12, 1973) is an American dancer, actress and singer. She was married to Prince for four years and has worked with various artists, including Britney Spears.

Early life and career

Garcia was born on November 12, 1973, at Fort Rucker, Alabama, army base.[1] Garcia's parents are both of Puerto Rican descent. Her father John was a United States military pilot, and her mother Janelle (also known as simply Nelly) was a dancer. Garcia and her older sister, Janice, grew up in both Germany and the United States. Garcia spent the summers of her childhood with her extended family in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She began belly dancing at age three. On May 12, 1981, then 7 years old, Garcia appeared on the American television program That's Incredible! as the world's youngest professional belly dancer. Garcia graduated from General H. H. Arnold High School in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Career and professional relationship with Prince

Garcia first came to the attention of Prince in 1990 when her mother submitted a video cassette of Garcia's performance to a dancer in hopes they would pass the tape on to Prince. Prince met the young dancer within minutes after viewing the video while on tour in Germany and eventually she was hired to dance during his Diamonds and Pearls Tour. She was sixteen. She became the focus of his next album, Love Symbol. She assumed the guise of an Egyptian princess for the concept album and the 3 Chains o' Gold video compilation.[2] Garcia was in Prince's band, The New Power Generation, from 1992 to 1996. Afterwards, she remained an associate of the NPG, dancing occasionally during Prince's tours in 1998 and 1999. In 1995, Prince produced an album for her, titled Child of the Sun, for a European release on his NPG Records label. This album had one single released overseas, "If I Love U 2 Nite". In 1997,[3] she was the artistic director of the New Power Generation Dance Company[4] on their Around the World in a Day tour.[5] She also directed the music videos for "The One" for Prince.[6] She choreographed the belly dancing routines for Britney Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U" music video, as well as Spears' now iconic performance of the song at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards. In 2017, Garcia released a book titled The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince about her professional and personal relationship with Prince.[7]

Films

Film appearances include the Hindi film Dus (2005) as a dancer, and Firehouse Dog (2007). In 2005, she appeared as a flight attendant in the Spanish language film El Vacilon.

Television

García has guest starred on various television series, such as 2 Broke Girls, Psych, The Closer, Las Vegas, Nip/Tuck, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. She appeared twice as a reporter on the 2007 ABC television series Big Shots. She had a recurring role on Lifetime's Army Wives (2008–2009) as Jennifer Connor. She starred on Sí TV's 2004–05 program Across the Hall with Eric Cubiche.[8] In 2009, she was a judge on the first season of Oxygen's Dance Your Ass Off. On June 25, 2012, she began appearing as a principal cast member on VH1's reality show Hollywood Exes.

Personal life

In 1990, 16-year-old Garcia met Prince backstage in Barcelona after he saw a tape of her dancing. According to Garcia, she soon moved into his Paisley Park home and he became her guardian.[7] After graduating high school she became a member of the New Power Generation. At 19, she says he instructed her to get on birth control thus beginning their sexual relationship.[7] On February 14, 1996, after a four-year courtship, Garcia married Prince.[9] Their only child, Amiir, was born on October 16, 1996. Born with Pfeiffer syndrome and unable to breathe without a ventilator, he died six days after his birth.[10] A week later, the couple were interviewed on Oprah, where they pretended their son was still alive.[11][12] According to Garcia, they were unable to process his death. "We believed he was going to come back, that souls come back. We didn't want to acknowledge he was gone."[11] After a subsequent miscarriage, their marriage deteriorated and they eventually divorced in 2000.[13] Currently, she lives in Las Vegas with her daughter Gia, who she adopted in 2013.[14] She is a vegetarian, and an animal rights activist for PETA.

References

  1. ↑ "11 Things to Know About Mayte Garcia". LATINA. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  2. ↑ Prince - He's going to party like it's... oh, never mind at exclaim.ca
  3. ↑ Crucial 1997 Archived 2007-12-12 at the Wayback Machine. at Uptown
  4. ↑ Vergi Rodriguez bio Archived 2008-01-11 at the Wayback Machine. at vergirodriguez.com
  5. ↑ Prince's Raspberry Ballet at Yahoo Music
  6. ↑ Call Me Prince Archived 2008-11-10 at the Wayback Machine., Icon Magazine, July 1998
  7. 1 2 3 Garcia, Mayte (2017). The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince. Orion Publishing Co. ISBN 9781409171201.
  8. ↑ Si TV's Mayte Garcia & Eric Cubiche ... at pr.com
  9. ↑ "Rocker's Princess Bride". Nydailynews.com. 1996-02-15. Archived from the original on 2009-07-09. Retrieved 2011-09-22.
  10. ↑ "Prince Book: Mayte Garcia on How the Death of Their Son Doomed the Marriage". PEOPLE.com. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  11. 1 2 Draper, Jason (2016). Prince: Life and Times: Revised and Updated Edition. Chartwell Books. p. 137. ISBN 9780760353639.
  12. ↑ "Prince Son: The Singer's Struggle To Have Children". HuffPost Canada. 2016-04-21. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  13. ↑ "Prince Book: Mayte Garcia on How the Death of Their Son Doomed the Marriage". PEOPLE.com. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  14. ↑ "Hollywood Exes Recap: Mayte Garcia adopts a baby girl!". Reality Tea. 2013-07-22. Retrieved 2017-07-21.
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