Alicia Machado is a Venezuelan-American actress, musician, and model. She came into the spotlight in 1995 when she won the crown in the 1995 Miss Venezuela beauty pageant. She was only 19 years old at the time. The very next year she won the larger crown and the title of Miss Universe. She was only the fourth Venezuelan to win this coveted crown.
With the release of her self-titled album in 2004, Alicia also entered the music industry. She also began her acting career when she appeared as Samantha del Lano in the Venezuelan telenovela Samantha in 1998.
Alicia Machado Bio, Family
Alicia Machado’s full name is Yoseph Alicia Machado Fajardo. She was born on December 6, 1976, in Maracay, Venezuela. She was born the daughter of a Spanish father and a Cuban mother whose family had fled Cuba before the Cuban uprising. Both parents moved to Venezuela in the mid-1990s. Her father owned a toy store.
Machado was an early bloomer; she showed early signs of her talent. When she was 4 years old, she was already performing as a dancer. At the age of 12, she added acting to her portfolio. Her college years were short-lived as she quit after less than two years to concentrate on her modeling career. After this time she started to appear in commercials.
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Career
Machado’s path to the Venezuelan beauty crown began when she won the Miss Maracay competition in 1995, and after winning the crown representing her state of Yaracuy, she was elected Miss Universe in 1996. She was crowned in Las Vegas, where she succeeded the Venezuelan goddess Jacquelin Aguilera, who happened to be the vice candidate for Miss Venezuela 1995. This was the moment in history when for the first time two Venezuelans won two world titles in a row, both from the same Miss Venezuela competition.
During her time as a candidate for the Miss Venezuela crown, Alicia chose the natural way. She avoided plastic surgery, which was common in the Venezuelan beauty pageant culture.
Later Machado admitted that she went through an intense dietary regime in preparation for the Miss Universe pageant. When she won the contest, she weighed just 116 pounds and suffered from bulimia and anorexia. Maybe that’s why she started gaining weight after winning the crown. She gained about 12 pounds, attracting considerable attention and even criticism from the press.
Although all the relevant officials in the beauty pageant refuted the claim that they were planning to replace her with the runner-up Aruban model Taryn Mansell, they put pressure on her to lose weight.
Finally, she gave in and asked American businessman Donald Trump to help her prepare for a healthier lifestyle. Trump then brought in 80 media people to cover her gym sessions and “watch her sweat”. Alicia Machado found this in very bad taste.
She got her first movie role when she starred in the 1998 telenovela Samantha. This earned her an award as the best new actress. In 2001, another cameo role followed in Secreto de Amor, an international soap opera. Alicia also appeared in her very first reality show called La Granja de Los famosos. Her second appearance in a reality show came the following year when she appeared in Cantando Por Un Sueno, a Mexican reality show.
The same month after the Mexican reality show, Machado made history as the first Miss Universe to perform nude for an issue of Playboy magazine. In February 2006, she graced the cover. In July 2010 she repeated this feat. In 2012 she got the opportunity to show her love for dance in the third season of Mira Quien Baila. She won third place in the show. She would also participate as a trainer in Nuestra Belleza Latina 2014 – a beauty contest organized by Univision.
In 2017, she will again show herself naked for the PETA advertising campaign for the ethical treatment of animals. The campaign was entitled “I would rather go naked than wear fur”.
Alicia Machado is also politically aware. This was first noticed in 1998 when she publicly showed her support for the then-presidential candidate Henrique Salas Romer. In 2010, in an interview with Playboy, she did the opposite by strongly criticizing the rule of the then president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.
Machado was equally vocal about Trump’s – in her winning words – being offensive and racist. She announced that she would publish a book on the subject. At that time, during Trump’s presidential campaign, she revealed how Trump had slandered her for her weight gain. He had called her “Miss Piggy” and even went one step further and called her “Miss Housekeeping” because of her Hispanic background.
Alicia Machado and Hillary Clinton’s also repeatedly compared the American businessman with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and German dictator Adolf Hitler. She used the term “Nazi rat” several times to describe him.
Hillary Clinton referred to Machado’s statements against Trump in 2016 during her first presidential debate. In an interview and on Twitter afterward, Trump questioned the professionalism and attitude of Alicia Machado, while condemning Hillary’s judgment of the Venezuelan model.
Major editorials such as The Globe and Mail, The New Yorker, and The Los Angeles Times condemned Trump’s tweets. Machado was subsequently used in two online ads in support of Hillary’s campaign.
Net Worth, Weight, Body Measurements
Machado’s information is perfect considering her profession. She is 1.70 m (5 feet 7 inches) tall, which is an average size for a woman.
Her body measurements are 36-26-36 inches. This corresponds to a breast size of 36 inches, a waist size of 26 inches, and a hip size of 36 inches.
Alicia Machado has more than 15 television credits, including reality shows, telenovelas, and movies. She also has two self-produced albums, not to mention her appearances in Playboy and her two beauty crowns. She is worth 4 million dollars.
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Other Facts About Alicia Machado
A Venezuelan judge, who in 1998 supervised an attempted murder of Machado’s then-boyfriend, accused the model of threatening his life. It was also alleged that the model was sitting behind the steering wheel of the escape vehicle. She denied both allegations and was not charged with either of them.
Alicia was once married to Bobby Abreu, a professional baseball player. The relationship broke up after they were already engaged. The Venezuelan beauty, who is the mother of one person (a daughter), was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013. She had to undergo a double mastectomy. Her daughter’s name is Dinorah Valentino Hernandez. Alicia had her in 2008 with her partner Rafael Hernandez Linares.
In a tweet in 2010, she made the serious mistake of confusing North and South Korea with China. Later she would close her Twitter account. The reason was that now too many psychopaths followed her on the social media platform.
Alicia, who lives in Miami, Florida, received US citizenship in May 2016. At that time Trump accused Hillary, the then-presidential candidate, of using her influence to help Machado obtain American citizenship. Alicia was a public supporter of Hillary Clinton during her campaign.