Tila Tequila

Tila Tequila (1981-     ) is a Vietnamese-American model, television personality and singer who first rose to fame as the most popular artist on MySpace with a total of 31.5 million views.  Tequila once had her own MTV reality show, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, which had aired for two seasons. Born in Singapore to Vietnamese parents, Tila Tequila moved to the United States with her family in 1982 and grew up in Houston, Texas.  She now lives in Los Angeles.

Tila Tequila grew up with a troubled adolescence where she had run away from home during high school, taking drugs and joining a gang.  After surviving a drive by shooting at the age of 16, she became pregnant the following year and suffered a miscarriage.  Despite such difficulties, Tila Tequila had managed to graduate from Alief Hastings High School in Houston in the year 2000.

Before relocating to Southern California in 2001, she was discovered at Sharpstown Mall by a Playboy scout and was later featured as Playboy's Cyber Girl of the Week on April 22, 2002.  Tila Tequila would also become Playboy's first Cyber Girl of the Month.  She has appeared on the covers of such magazines as Penthouse, King, Blender and Maxim UK.

In 2006, it was announced that Tila Tequila would be signed as a recording artist for Will.I.Am, a music label under A&M.  Despite signing with the label, Tila Tequila released her first official hit single, I Love U, in 2007 and shot a music video for the song.  On March of 2007, a Washington-based music label, The Saturday Team, released an EP by Tila Tequila entitled as Sex.  On October 9, 2007, Tila Tequila released her second official hit single, Stripper Friends.  And on April of 2010, she released her last single to date, I Love the DJ.  

A self-help autobiographical book was published by Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group in 2008, Hooking Up with Tila Tequila:  A Guide to Love, Fame, Happiness, Success and Being the Life of the Party, written by Tila Tequila and Sarah Tomlinson.

As for Tila Tequila's personal life, in recent years she has experienced quite a bit of tumultuous events.  In 2009, she had been allegedly choked and restrained by former boyfriend, Shawne Merriman.  She would sue Merriman for $1.5 million only to have Merriman countersue several weeks later.  The judge ruled in Merriman's favor for $2 million against Tequila.  At the end of 2009, Tila Tequila announced that she had become engaged to heiress Casey Johnson.  Unfortunately, Johnson was found dead on January 4, 2010 who had been a long sufferer of Type 1 Diabetes.   On November 14, 2014, Tila Tequila gave birth to a daughter, Isabella Monroe Nguyen.

Link(s):

Tila Tequila's Official Website