Tila Tequila is actually the stage name of the singer, model and television personality Tila Nguyen, which was a nickname she got in her early teens by experimenting with alcohol. The Singapore-born star is the third, and the youngest child of a Vietnamese family which emigrated from Vietnam after the war and then to the US when Tila was at the age of one. Having a harsh childhood she became a tomboy in middle-school and eventually a trouble-kid in high-school, including gangs, nightclubs and even drugs.
We had to figure it was only a matter of time. Someone is using quasi-fame in an attempt to capitalize on the overwhelming popularity of online poker.tila tequila poker MySpace “diva” Tila Tequila has launched TilaPoker.com, which is hellbent on taking advantage of the nearly two million shlubs who have asked to be Tila’s “friend” on MySpace.
Continuing to ride the wave of popularity, Tila Tequila has also launched two online gambling sites, TilaCasino.com and TilaPoker.com. On the poker site, players can earn Tequila Shots (the equivalent of poker points) by playing in ring games and raked tournaments. Playtech serves as the host network of her online casino, immediately making her a force to be reckoned with in the online gambling community.
Though she was born to a Vietnamese family in Singapore, Tila Nguyen spent much of her life in Houston, TX, the place to which her parents had immigrated when she was just one year old. With a childhood full of fights and rebellion (it was in high school that she allegedly got her nickname, Tila Tequila, after an adverse reaction to the alcohol) Tila eventually moved to Hollywood when she was 18 in order to pursue a career there. Soon she was modeling for Playboy and other publications, as well as appearing as a contestant in the 2003 VH1 program Surviving Nugent. Wishing to diversify her portfolio, Tila joined a couple of bands in the L.A. area, and even had a song, “Straight Up,” included on the 2005 MySpace Records debut compilation. Tila’s real fame, however, came in the form of her /MySpace personality. Selling her mixture of sex, candor, and seeming accessibility, Tila soon became the most popular figure on /MySpace, with, by early 2007, over 1.7 million friends. Her dedication to self-promotion, along with her good looks, paid off. In 2006 she was given a record deal on Will.i.am Music Group (run by the Black Eyed Peas frontman), an A&M imprint. Although she initially accepted the offer, she released her first single, the Lil Jon-produced “I Love U,” as an independent /iTunes-only offer in late February 2007, claiming she had decided to reject the major-label path in order to stay true to herself and her music and to continue her D.I.Y. approach to fame. Her debut EP, Sex, then came out the following month on the D.C.-based indie label The Saturday Team.
Many people have heard the name Tila Tequila in the past few years, be it from a men’s magazine like Stuff, Maxime or Penthouse, be it from the Playboy’s official website where she was elected first as the Cyber Girl of the week, and then the Asian Cyber Girl of the month back in 2002, be it as the host of the “Fuse TV” show, and lately, according to the page views on MySpace, as the most popular artist there, after she began her singer-songwriter carrier.