Tila Tequila is a U.S TV and social media personality who also goes by other stage names like Miss Tila, Tila Nguyen, and Tornado Thien. She gained fame and popularity in 2007 when she was named the most popular person on a social media networking site – My Space. She would later go ahead to host her own bisexual-themed reality show called A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila – a dating show where both male and female contestants compete for her affections.
These are definitely not the only things that have made the Vietnamese-American popular online; she has made headlines for both good, bad, and ugly reasons. Below are all you need to know about the internet sensation, her bio, and five other facts.
Who Is Tila Tequila?
Tila’s full name is Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen and she was born in Singapore on the 24th of October 1981. Her family was Vietnamese boat people, who fled Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Her family relocated to Houston Texas when she was just one year old. Tequila is the last of her parents’ three children. She has two siblings; an older brother named Daniel, and an older sister named Terri.
Due to her allergy to alcohol, her friends nicknamed her “Tila Tequila”. She attended Alief Hastings High School where she graduated in 2000. Life wasn’t all rosy for Tila as she had her own fair share of ups and downs while growing up. As a sixteen-year-old, living in Houston, she witnessed a drive-by shooting and also said she got pregnant around that age but suffered a miscarriage the next year. Tila later ran away from home to Queens, New York City, and remained there for several months. She revealed that it was her violent adolescent years in Texas that led her into modeling and it was also her reason for moving to California in 2001.
Here Are 5 Facts You Need To Know About The Media Personality
1. Her Early Career
Tequila started off as a model at the age of nineteen after she was spotted by a Playboy scout at a mall in Houston Texas. The scout offered her an opportunity to pose nude for the magazine which she accepted. After a successful test shoot, she moved over to Southern California and on 22nd April 2002, Tila appeared on the magazine as the Cyber Girl of the week and would soon become the first Asian Cyber Girl of the Month.
She did a few more shots for the magazine before diving into music the following year. Tila Tequila had always had an interest in rock music, out in California, she decided to give it a trial, after all, it is popularly said that there is no harm in trying. the model began by looking out for rock bands that were willing to have her in their group and after a long search, she eventually found one called Beyond Betty Jean. She joined the band where she sang and also wrote songs.
The group eventually broke up, still interested in making it as a singer, Nguyen began working in recording studios just to improve on her vocal and songwriting skills. She later became the lead singer for a band called Jealousy. The band released few songs online before eventually breaking up. In 2003, she was a contestant on Surviving Nugent, a reality show aired on VH1 in which the contestants are asked to perform compromising tasks and stunts for rock star Ted Nugent
2. How She Became an Internet Sensation
In the fall of 2003, the Singaporean-born model joined Myspace after she was kicked off Friendster – a social gaming site. Since she had thousands of fans and followers on Friendster joining MySpace was a better nest for her to continue what she was doing on Friendster which included uploading glamour shots of herself, recording and uploading her singing, as well as interactions with fans.
She also helped the site grow by inviting thousands of people to join the networking platform. The structure of MySpace also helped her gain fame and more fans as well. During the early days of the site, Tila Tequila often automatically appeared in random people’s “Top Friends” as one of the site’s most popular and oldest members.
By 2016, she was the most viewed profile on MySpace. With 1.5 million friends on the platform, she was profiled by Time magazine, the New York Times, and several other well-known news media as the star on MySpace.
3. Her Sexuality
Tila Tequila first came out as a lesbian, then a bisexual and recently she said she is neither of the two. In 2008, she began airing her own dating show called A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, where men and women alike compete for her attention and affection.
She dated Shawne Merriman (former NFL linebacker) who she would file a suit against for battery, assault, and false imprisonment, demanding $1.5 million as damages, Merriman countersued for $2 million and won the case. She later got engaged to heiress Casey Johnson, who died barely a month after their engagement of Diabetes after forgetting to take her drugs.
Tequila who now wishes to be addressed as Tornado Thien also dated Thomas Paxton Whitaker briefly in 2013. In March 2018, she announced that she is neither lesbian nor bisexual, but only pretended to be in order for her reality show A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila.
4. She is a Mother
In April 2014. Tila announced her pregnancy via her Facebook page and seven months later, on November 16, she welcomed her first child, Isabella Monroe Nguyen. She announced in March 2018, that she was carrying her second pregnancy.
Tila Tequila is Really Queer in Her Beliefs & Opinions
She said she believes the earth is flat and not spherical as science has proven. If the earth was round, she questioned why all the buildings in New York City were standing upright and not tilted.
In 2015 the ardent Donald Trump supporter was kicked out of the UK’s Celebrity Big Brother House, as a result of a 2013 Facebook post she made where she sympathized with Adolf Hitler, referring to him as a special and sweet kid.
In May 2017, she did a twenty-three minutes Youtube video where she claimed she signed a contract with God to become “God”. She also claimed, she is one of God’s angels and was sent by him to help the world that has become half-light, and half dark.
