Gloria Estefan hostessed a grief-themed new Red Table Talk and teared up while talking about the death of her own mother.
The 63-year-old pop star, who typically runs the show with her daughter Emily and niece Lili, also had her sister Rebecca on hand for the latest episode.
Entitled Healing After Loss, the show saw Gloria reveal that her mother’s death left her unable to ‘record my album for over a year.’
Baring her soul: Gloria Estefan hostessed a grief-themed new Red Table Talk and teared up while talking about the death of her own mother
Side by side: Her mother, who was also called Gloria, lived to be 88 before she died in 2017; they are pictured together in 2005
Her mother, who was also called Gloria, lived to be 88 before she died in 2017 with family all around her, as her pop star daughter revealed on social media at the time.
The next album the younger Gloria was able to release was Brazil305, which bowed this August and was produced by her husband Emilio Estefan.
Brazil305 sees her put a Brazilian spin on several of her old hits including Rhythm Is Gonna Get You, plus new numbers like the single Cuando Hay Amor.
Gloria called her mother ‘a true diva and the backbone of our family,’ sharing fondly that ‘She made sure there was a record player in our house and was constantly music playing in the house.’
Emotional: The 63-year-old pop star, who typically runs the show with her daughter Emily (right) and niece Lili (left), also had her sister Rebecca on hand for the latest episode
Sweet memories: Gloria shared fondly that her mother ‘made sure there was a record player in our house and was constantly music playing in the house’
During the Red Table Talk the younger Gloria explained she herself was only two when her parents escaped Cuba with their children after Fidel Castro’s takeover.
When Emily said to Gloria and Rebecca that ‘At times, you had a tumultuous relationship’ with their mother, the two sisters readily agreed.
‘Oh, I fought with her like cats and dogs. We were very similar,’ said Rebecca, while Gloria said that the nearest her mother ever came to apologizing to her was an outburst where she said: ‘I don’t know why I do these things! I don’t know why I can’t control myself or say what I’m feeling.’
Emily called her grandmother ‘literally my best friend,’ adding that ‘my grandma and I could talk about anything,’ even what she could not discuss with her mother.
Family history: During the Red Table Talk the younger Gloria explained she herself was only two when her parents escaped Cuba with their children after Fidel Castro’s takeover
Tight-knit family: Emily called her grandmother ‘literally my best friend,’ adding that ‘my grandma and I could talk about anything,’ even what she could not discuss with her mother
Rebecca told Emily: ‘She gave you the best of her. When you came into her life she was ready to do nothing but be your grandma.’
Gloria said: ‘The most beautiful thing that was able to happen with her was that she had the kind of death that despite all of the things she was hooked up to, we were all with her at the moment of her passing.’
Emily fought back tears as she remembered the ‘terrible’ moment when ‘we saw her heart rate go down, like one by one.’
‘She gave you the best of her’: Rebecca told Emily: ‘When you came into her life she was ready to do nothing but be your grandma’
Looking back: The family all became overcome while discussing the moment of the elder Gloria’s death three years ago
‘You still, I talk to her everyday before the show. I talk to her in my shower a lot,’ revealed Gloria of how she copes with the bereavement.
Her mother ‘sang beautifully. She was gorgeous. She looked like Liz Taylor. No matter what she was doing, she was dressed and made up to the nines.’
Gloria, who was in a sleek black ensemble, joked: Why do you think I got dressed like this for her episode? Because she always thought I was underdressed.’
The way they were: ‘You still, I talk to her everyday before the show,’ revealed Gloria; both she and her mother are pictured in Miami in 2005