At what the singer describes as an “exciting” part of her life, Gloria Estefan is officially a Barbie girl.
On her 65th birthday, the Cuban-American performer announced a new Barbie doll would be made in her honor.
“Overjoyed is pretty much the word,” Estefan expressed to PEOPLE Magazine. “I’ve gotten every award that you could possibly imagine. But somehow this was so incredibly special for me, maybe because I played with Barbie since I was a kid, a little girl, and she’s an American icon.”
“To have them celebrate my image and my career and my culture on my birthday…it’s really special. They were really, really sticklers about making sure that I was very involved in choosing her image, the clothes. I actually sent them my thigh-high boots and my jacket so that they could see the detail. That jewelry, the microphone, we made sure the hair was right, that she represented me in the way that was important to me. And I’m just beyond thrilled. What can I tell you?”
The doll’s design is based on Estefan’s look in the music video for “Get On Your Feet”.
“I can’t believe it, it’s just so quick. I mean, my life has flashed by. Maybe because my husband (Emilio Estefan) and I are constantly doing something and I’m probably at one of the most fruitful times of my life. If I would’ve thought back when I was a little girl that I would be doing this at this age, that I had a movie come out. Father of the Bride’s so successful,” she adds. “I was in Vivo, I’ve got a Christmas album that I did with my daughter and my grandson that is coming out in a month-and to have Barbies celebrating my life right at this moment is just…there’s a lot going on and it’s all great and I’m thrilled about it.”
She has memories of playing with Barbie dolls and using a sewing machine.
“My favorite thing about playing with Barbie was creating her environment, her home, I would take big spools of thread from my mother’s sewing kit and would make bar stools for Barbie and set up a little table,” she says, “I also stole other things from my mother, from her bathroom to make her bed, little Barbie mattress. And you can imagine what that is. My mom was not happy about that part, but I was very creative.”
“My mom couldn’t afford the house and the car. So we made our own. And that was the big fun of playing with Barbie.”
“Barbie’s really been good about evolving with the times. And Barbie’s had over 200 careers now. So they’ve been on the cutting edge of really having women or Barbie step into so many roles that were not originally female roles. At the time, I was happy just to play with Barbie.”
The new dolls will be available just in time for Hispanic Heritage Month and Estefan sees it as a great opportunity to embrace and express her culture.
“Our cultures enrich us. I mean, you’re not lesser than because you have other cultures in your background, you actually have more opportunity. The United States is a tapestry. I mean, unless you’re a Native American Indian, you’re from somewhere else in some generation and that’s what makes this country so unique and special. It’s all these colors being woven together into this beautiful quilt or tapestry of richness.”
“We have to celebrate those things. Also for me, it was particularly important so that Latinos that are coming down the pipe realize, ‘Hey, we can do this and we can have success and we can live our dreams.’ And Emilio and I have lived the American dream that everyone talks about so much. It’s very important that we do everything we can to keep that alive and those possibilities alive for generations to come.”
Barbie is also donating $25,000 to Artistas y Musicos Latino Americanos, an organization that supports music education. In addition to funding, Barbie will be supporting the organization through events and programs.
“It’s really important to me. I have a foundation, Gloria Estefan Foundation, and I love things that help kids or that make their lives better in any way, because that’s how you really affect the future. Being able to offer opportunities to young people, and especially now that those are the programs that get cut right away from public schools, music and art, which is absurd to me because music is math. It’s important to support these programs.