Cristina Maria Saralegui was born on January 29, 1948 in Miramar, Havana, Cuba. She is of Spanish descent. Her parents are Francisco Rene Saralegui, Jr. and Cristina Santamarina. She also has two sisters named Vicky and María Eugenia and two brothers Patxi and Inaki. In the 1960 her family moved to the United States and lived in Miami at the Key Biscayne. She studied at the Academy of the Assumption and graduated in the 1966. Afterwards, she enrolled at the University of Miami.
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Later, she started her internship at the “Vanidades” journal in the 1973. It was a great experience and she even improved her Spanish from spoken to written level perfectly. Then she worked as an editor for the Spanish version of Cosmopolitan magazine from the middle 70s and through the 80s.
Cristina started her television career in the 1989. Being a successful journalist, she decided to launch in Miami brand new Spanish-language reality talk show, “El Show de Cristina”, which is known to the viewers as “The Cristina Show”. It was on the air under the Univisión broadcast television network. The show became very popular due to its famous guests like Shakira, Celia Cruz, Julio Iglesias, Enrique Iglesias, Sussan Taunton, Gloria Estefan, Sebastian Rulli, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Amelia Vega and others. The show was closed in the 2010, the last air was on November 1.
Afterwards, she planned to continue her work as a collaborator, for special programs and interviews in the 2011, but it didn’t happen. In the 2003 she played the minor role of Lydia in the television sitcom series “George Lopez”. She appeared just in two episodes.
Her other project was on WAPA-TV and WLII-DT channels, where she appeared with an episode “"Cristina Breaks the Silence”. She was hired by the Telemundo TV network to be the host of the weekly show “Pa'lante con Cristina” in 2011. The next year the show was closed too. Currently, she involved in online interactive video “¡Amigos Live!”, which was created by AARP. She also is active in her radio program and other activity in the social media and her own site. In addition yo her television career, she also published her own books as well as a magazine, which was titled “Cristina: La Revista”.
She was married twice. With her first husband Tony Menendez, she has her older daughter Christina Amelia. She got to divorce in the end of 70s. She married again in the 1982. Her second husband is Marcos Avila, who worked for the Miami Sound Machine. She is not involved in any kind of extramarital affairs and it claims that they both are devoted to each other. They both have two children, one son Jon Marcos and step-daughter Stephanie. She is a very down to earth woman and has avoided controversies because of this reason. She has a net worth of 30 million dollars and earn an annual salary of 5 million. She is available in the social sites like Twitter and Facebook.
Last Modified: Mar 10, 2020
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