Marc Anthony

• 1. Introduction

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  Marc Anthony sang at the 2013 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Citi Field, and the loudest reaction online had nothing to do with his voice. Some viewers wrongly decided the singer was Mexican, and a small social media controversy followed. Anthony answered in an interview, and he left no room for doubt. "Let's get this straight. I was born and raised in New York. You can't get more New York than me."

  He was born Marco Antonio Muñiz on the 16th of September 1968, and he works as both a singer and an actor. That one exchange raises the questions this documentary follows. Where did the sound of a New Yorker with Puerto Rican roots come from? Why would a young singer in the dance clubs of the late 1980s end up fronting a genre he first turned down? And how does a musician end up on stage, on screen, in the owner's box of a football team and in charge of his own production company?

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• 2. Uptown Beginnings

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  Felipe Muñiz worked in a hospital cafeteria, and he also played music. His wife, Guillermina Quiñones, ran the household. Their youngest of eight children was born in New York City, and the family traced its roots to Puerto Rico. Felipe himself came from the city of Yauco.

  The boy took his name from a Mexican singer, Marco Antonio Muñiz. He grew up in East Harlem, a neighborhood also called Spanish Harlem or El Barrio, and he was raised Catholic.

  Singing lessons came from Felipe, a professional guitarist, who trained his son to perform in both Spanish and English. The radio filled in the rest. Young Marco listened to rock and rhythm and blues, to pop singers such as José Feliciano of Puerto Rico and the Australian band Air Supply, and to salsa giants Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón and Rubén Blades of Panama. By his own account, one name stood above them all. The Puerto Rican percussionist and bandleader Tito Puente shaped both his life and his work.

  The path to salsa ran through the dance clubs. Anthony began as a session vocalist for freestyle acts and underground New York house acts. He changed his name so that nobody would confuse him with someone who already shared it. Under his new name he wrote songs and sang backup for the pop groups Menudo and the Latin Rascals.

  In 1988 his first album, Rebel, appeared on Bluedog Records, and it was a freestyle record. That same year he wrote and produced "Boy I've Been Told" for another freestyle artist, Sa-Fire.

  In 1989 he sang backup on the freestyle club hit "With or Without You" by Ann-Marie, produced by Little Louie Vega and Todd Terry. With those two producers he wrote a duet for Chrissy I-eece in 1990, called "You Should Know By Now".

  A 13-inch vinyl release by Elan and The Powermachine, titled "Here's Your Hat", carried Anthony's vocals on its flip side in 1992. The track was "Love Change", and Todd Terry produced it. Around then Vega also featured him on club hits such as "Ride on the Rhythm", and on the album When the Night Is Over. That record included the freestyle classic "Time".

  Also in 1992, Vega and Anthony opened for Tito Puente at New York's Madison Square Garden. After that year, Anthony began steering away from freestyle and toward salsa and other Latin styles.

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• 3. The Salsa Turn

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  Ralph Mercado, president of RMM Records, asked Anthony to record a salsa album, and Anthony refused. The reluctance lasted until he heard Juan Gabriel's hit "Hasta Que Te Conocí" while riding in a taxi. He went back to Mercado with a new request. Could he record that song as a salsa tune?

  The Spanish-language debut that followed, Otra Nota, arrived in 1993. It also held a cover of "Make It with You", a song by the band Bread. Tours across the Americas, including a stretch opening for Rubén Blades, made him one of salsa's newest stars.

  His sound set him apart. New York salsa musicians of the 1960s and 1970s had often leaned toward social commentary, and the stars of the 1980s favored lushly produced romantic numbers. Anthony drew instead on rhythm and blues and house, which he had grown up hearing, and he brought African American and urban sounds into the genre.

  By the early 1990s he had sold more salsa records than any other performer. In 1994 he lent his voice to "Vivir Lo Nuestro" on La India's album Dicen Que Soy.

  Todo a su tiempo, his 1995 follow-up, won him a Billboard Award for Hot Tropical Artist of the Year, and it earned a Grammy nomination. Its songs included "Te Conozco Bien", "Hasta Ayer", "Nadie Como Ella", "Se Me Sigue Olvidando", "Te Amare" and "Llegaste A Mi". The album sold more than 800,000 copies and went gold in both the United States and Puerto Rico.

  Contra La Corriente came next. On Valentine's Day in 2000, HBO broadcast a television special called Marc Anthony: The Concert from Madison Square Garden. TV Guide nominated it for Music Special of the Year. Together, Otra Nota, Todo a Su Tiempo and Contra La Corriente made him the top-selling singer in the history of the genre, able to fill Madison Square Garden and respected halls abroad.

  One song from that album broke a barrier of its own. "Y Hubo Alguien" became his first number-one single on the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart, and the first by any salsa musician.

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• 4. Albums and Tours

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  On her album On the 6, Jennifer Lopez included a duet with Anthony, "No Me Ames", which helped her attempt to cross over in Spanish. He also recorded "I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You" with Tina Arena. James Horner wrote the song for the soundtrack of the 1998 swashbuckling movie The Mask of Zorro.

  In 1999, Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias were riding a crossover wave in the English-language market, and Anthony followed with a self-titled English album. His producers were Walter Afanasieff, Cory Rooney, Dan Shea and Rodney Jerkins.

  Its single "I Need to Know" reached the US Top 5, and a Spanish version carried the title "Dímelo". The song "You Sang To Me" was featured in the film Runaway Bride, and the Dutch producer Rene Van Verseveld remixed a dance version of it. The album debuted at number eight on the Billboard album chart. Six weeks later it went platinum, and it was eventually certified triple platinum. "I Need to Know" earned a Grammy nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

  Then he returned to salsa. Libre arrived in 2001 and was certified gold, with songs such as "Celos", "Este Loco Que Te Mira" and "Viviendo". It held the number-one spot on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart for 14 weeks. A year later came another English-language album, Mended.

  In June 2004 he released a Latin pop album, Amar Sin Mentiras. The following month he reworked its songs with a danceable salsa rhythm on a second album, Valio La Pena. The song "Escapémonos" was a duet with Jennifer Lopez, and the pair performed it at the 2005 Grammy Awards.

  On the 11th of July 2006, he put out Sigo Siendo Yo, a Spanish greatest-hits collection. In May 2010 came Iconos, a tribute to older Latin songs by artists such as José Luis Perales, Juan Gabriel and José José. A new song, "Cautivo De Este Amor", followed in 2012.

  In December 2012, word spread that he was recording a salsa album with his longtime producer Sergio George. The lead single, "Vivir Mi Vida", reached listeners on the 25th of April 2013. It was a Spanish adaptation of the song "C'est la vie" by Khaled. The album, 3.0, followed in July 2013 and has since been certified Platinum.

  Touring had been a pillar of his career for years. The Juntos en concierto series paired him with Chayanne and Alejandro Fernández in 2005, with Laura Pausini and Marco Antonio Solís in 2006, and with Jennifer Lopez in 2007. In 2012 his Gigant3S tour with Marco Antonio Solis and Chayanne topped the Billboard Hot Latin Tours chart.

  The Vivir Mi Vida World Tour crossed 15 countries on three continents. Pollstar ranked it among the top-selling tours of 2013, and it was extended to May 2014 by popular demand. It won a Premio Juventud for Super Tour of the Year. The Cambio de Piel Tour followed for the same album, and then UNIDO2, a tour alongside Carlos Vives.

  In September 2016, his Marc Anthony Live tour set aside five dates at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Three of the five shows sold out.

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• 5. Screen and Stage

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  The 1990 film East Side Story, in which Anthony played a character named Flaco, is the earliest screen credit on his filmography. In 1993 he turned up in Carlito's Way as a member of a Latin band at a disco, singing "Parece Mentira". Supporting parts followed in Hackers in 1995, then Big Night and The Substitute in 1996.

  In 1998 he joined Rubén Blades and the Puerto Rican pop singer Ednita Nazario in Paul Simon's stage musical The Capeman. Anthony played the young Salvador Agron on Broadway. The show ran for 68 performances.

  Martin Scorsese cast him in the 1999 drama Bringing Out the Dead. In 2001 he appeared opposite Salma Hayek in the television movie In the Time of the Butterflies. In Man on Fire in 2004, he played a wealthy businessman who hires a former US Special Forces soldier to protect his daughter from kidnappers in Mexico City. Denzel Washington starred opposite him.

  His biggest acting gamble came with El Cantante in 2007. In it he played Héctor Lavoe, the salsa legend who had been one of his childhood heroes and who died in 1993 from AIDS complications. His then-wife, Jennifer Lopez, narrated the story and portrayed Lavoe's wife. The film reached audiences in August 2007 and drew mostly negative reviews.

  In 2010 he guest-starred in two episodes of the TNT medical drama HawthoRNe as a detective who becomes the love interest of Jada Pinkett Smith's title character. Credits list his role as Nick Renata across 12 episodes. The show later named him its executive music producer.

  In late 2011 he worked with Lopez and the director-choreographer Jamie King on Q'Viva! The Chosen, a Latin talent series created by Simon Fuller. It followed Lopez and Anthony across 21 countries in search of new talent. The series aired simultaneously on Spanish and English television in the United States and Latin America. In 2012 he guest-mentored on the second season of The X Factor.

  Anthony later took a part in the movie musical In the Heights, released in 2021. He played Mr. De La Vega, the father of the character Sonny.

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• 6. Records and Recognition

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  Twelve million albums sold worldwide by 2014 is only the headline number, and the paperwork behind it includes many gold and platinum certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America. The Guinness World Records lists Anthony as the best-selling tropical and salsa artist. It also credits him with the most number-one albums on the Billboard Tropical Albums year-end charts. On the Billboard Latin Tropical Airplay chart, no artist has more number-one songs, and his total stands at 32.

  The trophies began in 1998, when he won his first Grammy, for Best Latin Tropical Performance, for "Contra La Corriente". Ángel "Cucco" Peña directed, arranged and produced that work. In 2000 "Dímelo", the Spanish version of "I Need to Know", became the first-ever Latin Grammy Song of the Year. Its parent album, his English-language debut, helped set off the Latin pop explosion of 1999-2000. In 2005 he took two best-album honors at once, Best Latin Pop Album for Amar Sin Mentiras and Best Salsa Album for Valió la Pena.

  He counts four Grammys and eight Latin Grammys overall. His 29 Premio Lo Nuestro Latin Music awards are the most won by any male artist. Twelve Billboard Latin Music Awards and three Billboard Awards sit alongside those, as does the ASCAP Founders Award.

  In 2013 "Vivir Mi Vida" spent 18 consecutive weeks at number one on Billboard, which the source describes as the longest-running number-one single of all time. It won the Latin Grammy Award for Record of the Year. He has had 25 Billboard chart hits. "Vivir Mi Vida" has drawn more than 680 million views and "Flor Pálida" more than 270 million YouTube views. In May 2015 he received his second Vevo certification, for 100 million views of the video for "A Quien Quiero Mentirle".

  Institutions honored him too. New York magazine named him one of the Ten Most Influential New Yorkers. In September 2009 the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Washington, D.C. A second honor, the Chair's Lifetime Achievement Award, was dated the 16th of September 2009. The Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame inducted him in 2012.

  On the 16th of November 2016, the Latin Recording Academy named him its Person of the Year, citing both his music and his philanthropy. In 2023 Rolling Stone placed him at number 167 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

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• 7. Beyond the Stage

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  In January 2012, Anthony and the entrepreneur Henry Cárdenas launched the Maestro Cares Foundation. In 2014 the foundation opened an orphanage in La Romana in the Dominican Republic. A youth home and school followed in 2015 in Barranquilla, Colombia.

  After Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, Anthony joined Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez in 2017 to host One Voice: Somos Live!, a telethon supporting the island's recovery.

  His politics lean toward the Democratic Party. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention he performed "The Star-Spangled Banner". In 2016 he co-hosted a concert backing the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.

  Business ventures arrived alongside the music. In 2009, he and Lopez bought small stakes in the Miami Dolphins, joining other celebrity investors including Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Venus and Serena Williams, and Fergie. In 2011 he launched a line of clothes and luxury accessories for Kohl's.

  In April 2015 he announced a new entertainment company, Magnus Media. Its production arm later signed a first-look deal with ViacomCBS International Studios.

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• 8. Family Life

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  On the 29th of June 1994, Anthony's daughter Arianna Muñiz was born; her mother is his then-girlfriend Debbie Rosado. During that relationship the couple adopted a son, Chase Muñiz, who was born in 1995.

  From 1996 to 1998 he dated the Dominican-American actress Claudette Lali, and the two became engaged. On the 9th of May 2000, he married the former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres in Las Vegas. Their son Cristian Marcus Muñiz was born on the 5th of February 2001, and he graduated from Parsons School of Design in May 2023. A second son, Ryan Adrian Muñiz, was born on the 16th of August 2003.

  Anthony married Jennifer Lopez in June 2004. They had worked together and dated for a few months in the late 1990s. Their marriage included shared records, shared stages and a shared film. On the 22nd of February 2008, Lopez gave birth to their twins, Max David and Emme Maribel Muñiz. People magazine paid $6 million for the first photos of the babies. The pair bought two houses in Brookville, New York.

  The couple announced their separation in July 2011. Anthony filed for divorce on the 9th of April 2012, and it was finalized on the 16th of June 2014. Lopez kept primary physical custody of the children.

  On the 11th of November 2014, he married the model Shannon De Lima in La Romana, Dominican Republic. They separated in November 2016, and the next month they announced plans to divorce. The divorce was finalized on the 13th of February 2017.

  By February 2022 Anthony was in a relationship with Nadia Ferreira, Miss Universe Paraguay. They got engaged on the 13th of May 2022. The wedding took place on the 28th of January 2023 at the Pérez Art Museum in Miami. David Beckham and Carlos Slim served as best men.

  On Valentine's Day 2023, the couple announced on Instagram that they were expecting. It was his seventh child and her first. Their son Marco Muñiz was born on the 12th of June 2023. On the 28th of January 2026, their third wedding anniversary, Nadia announced that a second child together was on the way, which would make eight children for the singer.

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