Enrique Iglesias: "My dad and I seldom speak; we're distant and see little of each other"

Noted Spanish gynecologist Julio Iglesias Puga had always been the glue that kept the Iglesias clan together, and for his December 2005 funeral, the alleged misunderstandings and disagreements between the family singers, Julio and Enrique, were put aside.

Enrique, who after 3 years of being absent returns to the music scene on June 12th with Insomniac, his eight studio album which will include 4 tracks in Spanish, talks to us about this situation.

“I arrived [in Madrid, and] the first thing I did was to hug him, spend all day with him,” says the singer, 30, about his reaction when he saw his father, 63, for the first time after a separation that lasted almost two years.

But apparently, the physician's passing didn't serve as a catalyst for father and son to iron things out. Since that encounter, Enrique has had had very little contact with his well-known father.

“The fact of the matter is that we seldom speak,” the young singer said. “Yes, we are distanced from one another and each lives his own life. And that we see little of each other, yes, we see little of each other.”

Is it true, then, that there is a professional rivalry between father and son?

“The only fight I've probably had with my father, aside from the fights you have when you're a kid, was when I was 18 and we had a serious fight because he thought it was strange for me to become part of the music world and perhaps even stranger that I had never told him about it, and that all of a sudden, I showed up with a record deal and said that I wanted to be a singer. I left home. I never looked back.”

That determination served him well in his struggle to make his dream come true. He has sold millions of albums around the world, won awards and accolades.But what his fans really want to know about is his relationship with the statuesque Russian tennis player Anna Kournikova.

Though he concedes that matters of the heart haven't been easy for him, Enrique confesses that his romance with Anna, 25, is “the only serious relationship I've had in my life.”

So do you see yourself with her down the road?
“I don't know. The only thing I can say is that, in my opinion, Anna, whether we are together or not, would be an ideal mother. I think she'd be the perfect mother, and I say it regardless of whether I'd be with her or not.”

But instead of getting ahead of himself, the singer lives one day at a time, often spending all day with the sports star, be it in Los Angeles or at home in Miami, where each has a place, according to Iglesias.

You'll find plenty more of this exclusive interview in the print edition of People en Español, which goes on sale June 4th.