Me

label executive made me doubt myself and the work I had done. This guy is not even a musician, so I’m sure he didn’t have the slightest clue about what it takes to lock yourself up in a studio and make music, everything you go through, emotionally speaking. But to me making music is a very personal process, so I felt he was attacking me at one of my most vulnerable moments, and I took everything he said very personally. I even got to the point where I imagined my career was essentially over, and that I would never again be able to make a record or perform live on a stage; nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
    But despite the fear this horrific man planted in me, I remained silent. I didn’t say one word, not to him and not to anyone. I went through a few days of anxiety, but my consolation came a few days later when the boss of that hateful individual selected the song to be released as a single. The rest, of course, became history. “María” became a bestselling single in France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, Italy, Turkey, and all of South America, where from the moment of its release it shot straight to the top of the charts. By the start of 1996 it was among the top ten bestselling singles, and I put it to the test when I performed it at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival, where the famous monstruo de la quinta Vergara 1 did not devour me. To the contrary: The song was a smash hit, and it hit hard.
    It was very exciting. When we saw how well the song and the album were doing, we set off on a tour all over Latin America. At the end of the tour, I returned to New York, where I went straight into my role as Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables , and lived those extraordinary weeks in the theater. There, something very interesting happened. As I was onstage each night on Broadway, people all over the world were singing and dancing to the sound of “María.” The song then crossed the Atlantic and reached Europe via Spain. During the summer and fall of 1996, the song continued to gain momentum, and it was thanks to it that I held a concert on Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, Argentina—which is like performing in the middle of Times Square in New York or the Champs-Élysées in Paris. We were expecting a lot of people, but could have never predicted that over 250,000 people would show up! It was incredible, and we had a blast as I became one with the audience. The footage we shot that day was later immortalized in one of the videos for the song “María.” The Argentine audience was amazing, and I’ll remember that day for the rest of my life. The warmth of the reception I received from that incredible audience not only made me feel accomplished as far as the work I had done, but it was also a clear indication of everything that lay ahead.
    The now infamous Latin Boom wouldn’t hit yet for another couple of years, but that same month, the Argentine newspaper El Clarin was way ahead of the trend when they published a piece about the Latin fever that, according to them, was starting to sweep through the United States. I was mentioned as one of the artists introducing Latin rhythms to audiences that couldn’t speak a word of Spanish. Later, when the Latin Boom hit with full fury, thundering through every inch of the planet, the article turned out to be prophetic.
    Back then, and thanks in large part to the phenomenal concert we did in Buenos Aires, I felt I had the full support of the Latin American audience. Many of my fans knew me from my days in Menudo and we had all grown up together. Others were new admirers who only knew me as a solo artist. The support of the Latin American audiences has always been a source of great inspiration and pride for me, but at that moment, with everything that was going on around me, I felt that something huge was just about to happen. I wanted to broaden my horizons and reach new audiences throughout the world, including the United States and Europe. And the more I seemed to want it, the more opportunities began to pop up.
    My career was on the rise and I was not going to let anything get in my way—not even a car accident in the mountains of Italy.
    In 1997 I had the honor of being invited to the prestigious music festival of San Remo. We landed in Milan, where we were slated to board a helicopter to San Remo, but when we reached the mountains the sky closed in and the pilot said: “We’re not going to make it. I am