Tila Tequila | |
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![]() Tequila in October 2008 | |
Born | Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen (1981-10-24)October 24, 1981 (age 43) Singapore |
Nationality | American |
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Occupations |
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Years active | 2001–present |
Children | 2 |
Musical career | |
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Musical artist |
Nguyễn Thị Thiên Thanh[1] (born October 24, 1981),[2] better known by herstage nameTila Tequila, is an American model, singer, television andsocial media personality.[3] She has also used the namesTila Nguyen,Miss Tila andTornado Thien. Born inSingapore and raised inHouston,Texas, Tequila moved toLos Angeles in 2001 to pursue her modeling career. She first gained recognition for her active presence onsocial networking websites. After being featured as amodel in numerous men's magazines (includingPlayboy,Stuff andMaxim), she made her reality television debut on theVH1 showSurviving Nugent (2003). After becoming the most popular person onMyspace,[4] Tequila was offered the opportunity to star in her own reality television series. Herbisexuality-themed dating show,A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila (2007), aired for two seasons and becameMTV's second-highest-rated series premiere of that year.
In addition to her career in modeling and television, Tequila also pursued her career as a recording artist. She was the lead singer of the bands Beyond Betty Jean and Jealousy, before launching a solo career. Her debut single "I Love U" was released in 2007 to mixed reviews. Despite having strong online sales, the song failed to enter any charts. Tequila followed with several independently released singles, including "Stripper Friends" and "Paralyze". In 2010, she released her second EP,Welcome to the Dark Side. Her book,Hooking Up With Tila Tequila: A Guide to Love, Fame, Happiness, Success, and Being the Life of the Party, was published in 2008.
She has long used social media and personal blogs to post her comments and has made posts that are described asantisemitic andhomophobic. In a 2013 blog post, she expressed her support and admiration ofAdolf Hitler.[5] When these comments came to light in 2015, they led to her removal fromCelebrity Big Brother; she blameddepression and drug use for the comments.[6][7] She has also made associations withNeo-Nazism and thealt-right.[8][9]
Nguyen was born in Singapore, where her family wereVietnamese boat people, who arrived from Vietnam after theVietnam War.[2][10] Nguyen has an older brother, Daniel, and an older sister, Terri.[11]: 6 When she was one year old, the family relocated to a neighborhood inHouston, Texas and was eventually admitted to agated community run by a strictBuddhist temple.[12] The family left the community when Nguyen was eight.[citation needed] She says she became rebellious and used the drugecstasy at 11, and says "I used to rob houses, steal cars and stuff. And it just got worse in high school.”[3] This led to her being sent to areform school for six months.[3]
Nguyen was nicknamed "Tila Tequila" by friends due to herapparent allergy to alcohol.[13][14] In her memoir, she would later explain that she felt "confused" and "lost" by various personal family and environmental issues. She turned to writing poetry in an attempt to release powerful emotions. At age 16, Nguyen ran away toQueens,New York City, for several months.[12] While still 16, she experienced adrive-by shooting in Houston. She reports having become pregnant and suffering amiscarriage the following year.[15]
Nguyen graduated fromAlief Hastings High School in 2000. She has cited her violent adolescence in Texas as her reason for becoming a model and moving to California in 2001.[11] In a March 2003 interview, she revealed that she has taken some college classes but does not have a degree, stating, "I didn't want to go to college for an actual degree because there's nothing out there I like besides doing something that involves theentertainment industry."[16]
Nguyen's modelling career began when she posed for a friend's calendar.[3] Then, at the age of 19, she was discovered at theSharpstown Mall by aPlayboy scout and was offered a chance to model nude for the magazine. She did a test shoot, then eventually moved toSouthern California and was featured asPlayboy'sCybergirl of the Week on April 22, 2002,[16] and soon thereafter she became the first Asian Cyber Girl of the Month.[17] A few more pictorials for the magazine followed.[10]
At age 20, Nguyen acted on her interest inrock music and started looking for bands willing to let her join. She eventually assembled a band called Beyond Betty Jean, for which she was singer and songwriter. Beyond Betty Jean eventually broke up and Nguyen started working in recording studios to sharpen her vocal skills and wrote music.[17] Later, she became the lead singer of a band called Jealousy, which released a few songs online before breaking up. In 2003, Nguyen was a contestant onVH1'sSurviving Nugent, areality TV show where participants performed compromising tasks and stunts for rock starTed Nugent.[18]
Nguyen gained further popularity through theimport racing scene. She has been featured on the cover ofImport Tuner magazine, at car shows such as Hot Import Nights, and in the video gameStreet Racing Syndicate.[16][19] Nguyen joinedMyspace in the fall of 2003 after getting booted off ofFriendster multiple times.[20] She says that "At that time no one was on there at all. I felt like a loser while all the cool kids were at some other school. So I mass e-mailed between 30,000 and 50,000 people and told them to come over. Everybody joined overnight."[20] She eventually amassed 1.5 million followers on the site and turned it into a business venture selling merchandise.[20] At her maximum, she had 1,771,920 MySpace friends.[21]
During the first season ofFuse TV's dance show,Pants-Off Dance-Off, on which a group of contestantsstrip tomusic videos, Nguyen was the most frequent host.[10] In April 2006, during the taping of an interview withMTV'sTotal Request Live VJs,will.i.am announced that Nguyen had been signed to the Will.I.Am music group, a record label underA&M Records. Despite this major-label signing, Nguyen independently released her first single "I Love U" throughiTunes on February 27, 2007, justifying the independent release through her desire to become famous by herself.[2] She also shot a music video for the song. In March 2007, Washington-based record label The Saturday Team released an EP calledSex, by Tila Tequila.[2] On July 27, 2007, Italian website MusicBlob reported that The Saturday Team and distributor Icon Music Entertainment Services sued Nguyen over breaching her contract related to the album.[22] However, Nguyen claimed in a MySpace bulletin[22] that the EP was not authorized for release by her, and was removed from most retailers. The Saturday Team won a legal case, makingSex available for digital purchase. Nguyen made an appearance as one of the 12 strangers in the first game on April 6, 2007, episode ofNBC's game showIdentity. On March 4, 2007, she made acameo appearance on the showThe War At Home.[23] She also appeared as aHooters Girl in the 2007 filmI Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
In May 2007, Nguyen began filming for areality show which first aired on MTV on October 9, 2007, asA Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. The program was abisexual-themed dating show where 16straight men and 16lesbian women competed for Nguyen's affections, the twist being that the contestants were not aware of her bisexuality[12] until the end of the first episode. The ten-episode series was produced bySallyAnn Salsano and MTV.[24] The show led to a heated online debate between Nguyen and conservative Christians after an article appeared onThe Christian Post on September 13, 2007.[25] After seeing the article, Nguyen wrote an impassioned response in her blog on September 28, 2007, criticizing churches for "bashing" thegay community while thanking God for saving her life.[10][26] The show premiered for a second season in April 2008 and became a popular gossip subject in Asian media, such asAsianWeek.[27] The season finale premiered July 8, 2008, the winner being Kristy Morgan, who declined her "shot at love".[28]
On October 9, 2007, Nguyen released her second official single, "Stripper Friends".[29] A video premiered viaYahoo! Music on February 26, 2008, and was released toiTunes on March 4, 2008. The single failed to chart. In April 2008, the single "Paralyze" and its accompanying music video were released viaYahoo! Music andiTunes.[30] The "I Love U Remixes" EP was released to digital music retailers on April 7, 2009. On December 2, 2008, Nguyen released aself-help book,Hooking Up with Tila Tequila: A Guide to Love, Fame, Happiness, Success, and Being the Life of the Party (ISBN 9781439101537).[31][32]
By 2010, Tequila decided to reinvent her image and changed her stage name to Miss Tila.[33] Her first single released under the new moniker was "I Fucked the DJ", along with an edited version entitled "I Love My DJ".[34] Released under her newly established label Little Miss Trendsetter, the single received negative reviews and failed to be successful in charts. In May, she launched her celebrity gossip blog, MissTilaOMG.com, and the EP,Welcome to the Darkside, which marked a musical departure from her previous material. Influenced by classical music and artists such asNina Simone andBillie Holiday,Welcome to the Darkside received more positive reviews.[35] However, it did not manage to gain commercial success.
Tequila began a tour supporting the new EP and at one of her tour stops in August 2010, she appeared at theGathering of the Juggalos, a music festival founded by hip hop duoInsane Clown Posse. She was repeatedly pelted with rocks and bottles among other objects, and she vowed to take legal action against the organizers and promoters for the event.[36][37]
During this time, asex tape featuring a lesbianthreesome in which she performed was leaked.[38] Tequila tried to buy back the tape before its release, but could not come to terms withVivid Entertainment.[39] She later starred in a sex tape that won a 2015AVN Award for "Best Celebrity Sex Tape".[40]
In May 2015, it was announced that Nguyen was working on new music.[41] In June, she posted a snippet of the song "Drunk Dialing" on herInstagram and wrote it would be released in the Summer. In August, she became one of the contestants on thesixteenth season ofChannel 5 reality seriesCelebrity Big Brother. However, she was ejected from the house after just one day, due to many viewer complaints of her controversial statements made in 2013, when she postedanti-Semitic comments and praisedNazi dictatorAdolf Hitler on Facebook.[42] Tequila posted a snippet of "Drunk Dialing" again in September and confirmed it would be released by the end of October along with a music video.[43][44] In November, Tequila and her management confirmed the single would be released on December 4. Tequila also announced her own line ofe-liquids forvaporizers in collaboration with Blaze Vapors.[citation needed] In 2018, she began using another stage name, Tornado Thien.[8]
In 2019, she took to Youtube to announce aGospel album, and that she would useGoFundme to raise money to produce it.[8]
In July 2001, Nguyen started the website TilasHotSpot.com, which later began redirecting to MissTila.com. Originally the site featured information, quotes, blog, and pictorials requiring adult verification and a monthly fee.[3] Later, the site was revamped to feature all-ages content and information to promote her career, business ventures, personal information, and a premium membership section including videos, non-nude picture galleries, blogs, and chat sessions.[45] In 2008 the site was transformed into asocial network.[46]
During 2005, Nguyen launched TilaFashion.com,[47] a site featuring her custom line of clothing for men and women.[48] In 2006, Nguyen created another website, TilaZone.com[49] which features content to use onMyspace and othersocial networking websites includinglayouts,widgets, andclipart.[50]
In December 2009, Nguyen partnered withJoe Francis to launch the now-defunct dating website TilasHotSpotDating.com,[51] aimed at people ages 18 and up. The site included a free membership with basic access, and paid membership for other areas of the site. Nguyen took in webcam chats on the site.[52]
In 2010, Nguyen launched a celebrity blog site, MissTilaOMG.com; it transformed into her personal blog in 2012.
As of 2018, Nguyen sells artwork online under the name of Tornado Thien.[53]
Nguyen was featured on the cover of the April 2006 issue ofStuff magazine; in the interview, she claimed that her nickname "Tila Tequila" came about when she experimented with alcohol at the age of 13.[54] She appeared on the August 2006Maxim UK cover, was named #88 in their Hot 100 List,[55] and also appeared in the December 2007 issue.[56] She was ranked #100 on theMaxim Hot 100 list in 2008.[57]
Nguyen has been featured on the front page of magazines such asPenthouse,King,Blender, and most recentlySteppin' Out.[58]
In December 2013, Nguyen posted an article on her website titled "Why I Sympathize with Hitler: Part I".[5] In the post she calls Hitler "a good man" and additionally a “man of compassion.”[7] Additionally, she also posted a photo of herself with aNazi armband, posing with a gun in front of a photo of theAuschwitz concentration camp.[6] In other posts, she also said that she believes thatEastern European Jewish people are descended from theKhazar people.[59] On her blog she also claimed thatElisa Lam andPaul Walker were killed in "ritualistic murders".[59]
In 2015, she endorsed Donald Trump for President and cited his opposition toTrans-Pacific Partnership as a reason.[60]
In August 2015, Tequila became a contestant in thesixteenth series of British television reality game showCelebrity Big Brother, but was asked to leave the program on its second day when producers became aware of her comments about Hitler and photos.[6] She subsequently apologized for her earlier comments, blaming them ondepression anddrug addiction saying that she is “deeply sorry for my irresponsible, reckless and selfish actions and I hope that everyone can forgive me for the pain that I may have caused.”[7]
On May 6, 2016, Nguyentweeted thatJewish-American political commentatorBen Shapiro should "be gassed and sent back to Israel" and later posted that "There are only two things in this world, for which I would gladly sacrifice my own life; the destruction of all Jews and preservation of the white race" and "You know what will help Asians earn respect? An Asian version of Adolf Hitler… I want that person to be me; I want to save the world from this Zionist disease!".[61][62]
In June 2016, Tila Tequila accusedSarah Silverman and the Jews ofkilling Jesus before saying the comedian was next on a "celebrity sacrifice" list.[63]
She has made associations with thealt-right and neo-Nazism.[9] On November 19, 2016, she attended an alt-rightNational Policy Institute meeting celebrating theelection of Donald Trump, organized by white supremacistRichard B. Spencer, and posted photos on social media of herself doing aNazi salute.[64] One was posted toTwitter with the text "Seig heil!" [sic] and a raised hand.[65] On November 22, 2016, her account wassuspended by Twitter.[64] Consequently, she joinedGab.[66]
She has expressed her views on several scientific topics as well. Tequila released a video on YouTube expressinganti-vaccine views saying "vaccines causes 240% of black boys to have Autism."[60] She has also expressed her belief that the Earth isnot a sphere but is flat.[67][68]
On March 7, 2012, it was reported that Tequila had agreed to check into rehab after having reportedly "almost died" from an attempted suicide by overdosing on pills. The incident caused her to be hospitalized from abrain aneurysm.[69] Tequila completed her rehab treatment on April 5, 2012.[70]
By the end of 2007, Tequila was linked to the winner of her dating showA Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, Bobby Banhart. In January 2008, she revealed that she and Banhart had ended their relationship.[71] Shortly afterwards, Banhart posted a message on his Myspace stating he had never dated Tequila and that she "never called him after the last show and no one would give him her number."[72][73] Tequila later came out as a lesbian rather than a bisexual and stated that she wanted to pick the show's runner-upDani Campbell but the producers made her pick Banhart.[74]
In March 2018, Tequila uploaded a video toYouTube, saying that she was neither lesbian nor bisexual. She only pretended to be lesbian and bisexual in order to create ratings forA Shot at Love with Tila Tequila; she had a boyfriend while filming the show. Additionally, she associated homosexuality with the Devil and referred to former contestants of the show as "degenerate" and "disgusting".[75]
On December 9, 2009, Tequila stated she was engaged to heiress Casey Johnson, daughter of businessmanWoody Johnson, and was photographed with a diamond ring.[76] Johnson died on January 4, 2010, of complications resulting fromdiabetic ketoacidosis.[77]
Tequila began dating musician Thomas Paxton Whitaker (born 1971) in 2013, which ended due to Whitaker's financial problems.[78] On April 18, 2014, Tequila confirmed her pregnancy on her Facebook page.[79] Tequila gave birth to her first daughter on November 16, 2014.[80][81]
In September 2018, Tequila gave birth to her second child, also a daughter.[82]
On September 6, 2009, Tequila was allegedlystrangled andrestrained by former boyfriendShawne Merriman, who was later arrested.[83][84] San Diegodistrict attorneyBonnie Dumanis decided not to charge Merriman after her office spent three days reviewing reports from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.[85] On November 17, 2009, Tequila sued Merriman for $1.5 million.[86] Several weeks later, Merriman countersued, alleging intentional interference with contract, unfair competition, andtrademark infringement.[87] She declined to respond to his more recent actions and a default judgment was entered in his favor for $2 million.[88] However, the default judgment was later set aside in January 2010.[89] In February 2010, both sides jointly moved the court to dismiss the claim, and the court dismissed the case on the same day.
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
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2007 | I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry | Hooters Girl | Cameo |
2011 | Tila Tequila Uncorked! | Herself | Straight to DVD |
2013 | Masterminds | Monae | |
2014 | Tila Tequila 2: Backdoored and Squirting | Herself | Straight to DVD |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
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2003 | Surviving Nugent | Herself | Reality TV |
2008 | Robot Chicken | Herself/Karate Instructor/Lawyer/Steve's Wife (voice) | Episode: "Help Me" |
2007 | A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila | Herself | Reality TV |
2007 | The War at Home | Herself as Tila Tequila | |
2008 | A Shot at Love II with Tila Tequila | Herself | Reality TV |
2010 | The Cleveland Show | Herself as Tila Tequila (voice) | 2 episodes |
2011 | $#*! My Dad Says | Ting-Ting | Episode: "Ed Goes to Court" |
2012 | NY Ink | Herself | |
2014 | E! True Hollywood Story | Herself | Episode: "Life After Reality" |
2015 | Celebrity Big Brother: UK vs USA | Herself; Housemate | 14th Place (2 Episodes); Ejected Day 2 |
Year | Award | Category | Work | Result |
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2007 | The Soup Award | Entertainer of the Year | — | Won[90] |
2008 | Bravo's A-List Award | A-List Drama Queen | — | Won[91] |
2008 | Guys Choice | So Hot They're Famous | — | Won[92] |
2012 | 29th AVN Awards | Best Celebrity Sex Tape | Tila Tequila Uncorked | Nominated |
2015 | 32nd AVN Awards | Best Celebrity Sex Tape | Tila Tequila 2: Backdoored & Squirting | Won[60] |
well everyone wants to know so here it is she never called me after the last show and no one would give me her number so pretty much I feel like and ass but we are not 2gather u cant have a realationship bye urself ya know so now you all know and sometimes no matter how bad you want things to work out they dont and theres nothing you can do i tryed... thank you all
The Soup's Entertainer of The Year! Tila Tequila!
I won the Drama Queen Awards! You know, there's actually, uh, a lot of good contenders up there, so the fact that I won is awesome! I didn't realize I was that dramatic.