Inside Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova’s Super-Private Romance

Anna Kournikova & Enrique Iglesias Welcome Baby No. 3!

You can run, you can hide, but ultimately there’s no escaping Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova‘s love.

Though apparently some of his more amorous fans forget about it when they get close to the “Hero” singer while he’s performing, even if the mother of his three children is right…there.

“I love embracing and kissing and just hugging my fans. I like getting close up,” the 49-year-old said during a May 8 appearance on Hits 1 Miami with Mack & Jen. And Kournikova, 42, has told him, “‘I always get this look from some of the girls and some of the ladies. Are you okay with it?’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m totally cool. He’s on stage.'”

The Grammy winner and the champion tennis player met in late 2001, when Kournikova played Iglesias’ love interest in the steamy music video for his hit “Escape.” And while there were some things to sort out before they could be together forever…

It was game, set, perfect match.

“She’s beautiful, talented, great tennis player,” he said appreciatively of his “Escape” costar in a 2001 Making the Video feature, adding, “It doesn’t take a good actor to kiss Anna and try to make it believable.”

And so began their tradition of playing coy—though when they started having babies, it was a sign that their super-private life together was going well.

“It’s incredible to watch her be such a great mother,” Iglesias told The Sun in October 2018, when twins Nicholas and Lucy were 10 months old. “It’s incredible to watch a mom do what she does, when a mother’s instinct kicks in.”

Asked whether becoming parents had put a damper on their alone time, the singer informed the tabloid that “the sex has not diminished.”

Daughter Mary was born in January 2020.

Though she did share a teaser for Iglesias’ “Subeme la radio” video in February 2017, Kournikova’s Instagram page pre-babies mainly revealed that she was deeply committed to working out and in a serious relationship with her beloved dogs. Same for Iglesias, whose pre-fatherhood account was devoted to touring, music, fans—and the dogs.

He and Anna respectively wished their canine son Jack a happy birthday on Oct. 9, 2017, two months before their twin humans were born on Dec. 16 without the couple having let on that they were expecting (though, as they later revealed, they were snapping pictures along the way). 

To this day, they remain as low-key about their partnership as ever—dogs still factor prominently—but they will shout each other out on special occasions.

On his birthday in 2022, Kournikova posted a rare photo of all five of them, calling Iglesias an “amazing dad” and writing “we super love you!!!”

Similarly, on Mother’s Day that year, Iglesias posted a video of Kournikova having a mommy-daughter dance party in their (very big) backyard. (With a dog in the foreground, of course.)

“While I don’t typically comment on my personal life, let me confirm once again that I am not married,” Kournikova stated on her website. According to the Telegraph in 2003, she later responded to a request for comment with, “Why don’t you go and find out? I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Federov said yet again in 2005, talking to ESPN.com, that he and Kournikova were briefly married—and that their relationship was, for one thing, misunderstood, and that it had its highs and lows.

“The best thing was that we were both Russian. There was no romance for a long time. She was just a kid when we met the first time,” said Federov, who’s 11 years older than Kournikova. “Our families got along. We had a lot in common, we lived similar lives, we understood each other. So our friendship developed ’cause we were in the same position professionally and socially.”

Whether she and Federov ever tried marriage on for size or not, Kournikova and Iglesias had met by the end of 2001. The sexy “Escape” video premiered in January 2002 (“We’re trying to get as much sex in this video as possible,” Iglesias said in the making-of video) and they attended the MTV Video Music Awards together that August.

The stars simply aligned for the pair, who adopted Miami as their hometown. They loved sports, the sun and being on the water—and understood what it was like to be targeted by tabloids and on the road for weeks or months at a time.

Plagued by injuries, Kournikova retired from competitive tennis in 2003 (she never won a singles championship but had 16 in doubles, including two Grand Slam titles), though she’d continue to play in exhibitions and other related events for years to come, and she remained one of the most talked-about personalities in sports.

“I know what it’s like to be judged, dissected, picked apart for all of my life,” Kournikova told the Los Angeles Times in 2011, when she joined The Biggest Loser as a trainer. “It was so painful. I was just a kid at the time. I was being judged over here for being too pretty, or over there for not looking good enough. And God forbid I gained a pound. I heard about it. And then I was being criticized for not being a good enough tennis player and yet I knew—I knew—I was giving it everything I had.”

In 2004 she and Iglesias sparked secret-marriage rumors (denied) and in April 2007 he told People en Español that he wasn’t sure if he foresaw marriage, or even happily ever after, for them. “The only thing I can say is that, in my opinion, Anna, whether we are together or not, would be an ideal mother,” he said.

The following month he further mystified people, reportedly telling Sweden’s Aftonbladet that not only did they break up… “We’re divorced. I am single now, but that’s okay,” he was quoted as saying. “I don’t mind being alone.”

But Kournikova’s rep said the singer had been joking and they were still together after five years of dating. Meanwhile, the athlete did have her own thoughts on the subject, which she eventually became comfortable sharing.

“I’m never getting married,” Kournikova told People in 2008, but added that “everything is good” on the personal front.

She explained her own approach to trying to maintain her privacy to The Guardian in 2008, saying, “Girls look at him. Guys look at me. It goes with the job, but it gets annoying when you feel violated. Just take the picture and be done.'” You could almost hear the shrug.

“I’m not married, not pregnant, didn’t have a boob job, no Botox. What else?” she offered.

That being said, Kournikova wasn’t accompanying herself on a tiny violin.

“I’ve never really thought marriage would make a difference,” Iglesias told Parade in 2012. “Maybe it’s because I come from divorced parents, but I don’t think you love somebody more because of a piece of paper.”

He reiterated as much to E! News in 2016, though he added cryptically, “Who knows what the future holds…or the past…haha.”

The youngest of three born to Spanish super-star Julio Iglesias and his first wife, Maria Isabel Preysler-Arrastía, he had a notoriously prickly relationship with his father, who went on to have five more children with his second wife. Enrique told The Guardian in 2010 that the person he most admired in life was “Elvira, the lady that took care of me when my parents weren’t able to be there. She dedicated her whole life to me and my brother and my sister. Now I take care of her.”

In 2014, Julio told The Mirror that he had never met Kournikova, though he wholeheartedly approved of the match.

“My kids are very independent and it is difficult to see Enrique because he is all over the world,” the singer said. “But Anna is very beautiful—they have good taste, my kids.”

Iglesias’ mother, siblings, stepmom and step-siblings had met her, though, Julio said, and he was confident that his son was doing well. Meanwhile, Igelsias’ mom, sister and brother all expressed their excitement when the twins were born.

“It was a perfectly normal pregnancy, she didn’t have to do mandatory bed rest at any time,” the babies’ grandma Isabel Preysler told Hola! “Anna hasn’t had to hide. She has a very simple and homey life.” 

Iglesias wasn’t a regular in the crowd while Kournikova was still playing, presumably not wanting to be a distraction, but they did like to watch tennis together. They were photographed in the stands at the Los Angeles Tennis Center in 2004, and then popped up at what’s now the Miami Open, held annually in Key Biscayne, to watch Serena Williams play in 2009.

Asked in 2007 if he could Kournikova at any sport, Iglesias confidently told Sports Illustrated, “Anything except tennis and wrestling. Her reflexes are disturbingly good. You throw anything at her, and she catches it.”

Dating an athlete, Iglesias said, had made him respect athletes 1,000-times more. “In music you can start whenever, 18 or 19 years old,” he said. “If you want to be an athlete, you have to start when you are 4 or 5. There is so much dedication, so many hours, mentally and physically. Sometimes your mind wants it so much but your body cannot handle it.”

“Anna took to me the place where she was brought up in Russia,” he continued, “and if you see the house she lived in, you can open up your arms and touch it wall to wall. Out of there, she played every single day for eight hours since she was 5 years old. For me, it’s mind-boggling. To me, she is the most amazing person I have ever met.”

They’ve been all over the world on vacation like glamorous celebrities, but part of their charm is that they usually keep date night local like regular people, whether they’re catching a Miami Heat game or just going out to dinner, or taking their boat for a spin (which is considered regular in Miami Beach).

In fact, after they were rumored to have broken up in 2013, the inevitable rumor-quashing pictures of them on the boat were forthcoming.

Kournikova also said on The Graham Norton Show that they had their ordinary-couple issues just like anybody else. Asked if Iglesias left his wet towels lying around, she said, “Yeah, and you find underwear, you know, everywhere and dirty socks and everything.” 

“At least it’s Enrique Iglesias’ dirty underwear,” Norton quipped. “Put it on eBay.”