Tila Tequila was the adapted stage name of Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen, born on Oct. 24, 1981 in Singapore, where her family moved to after the Vietnam War. A year later, Nguyen and her family immigrated to the United States to live in a suburb near Houston, TX. By the time she was in middle school, the Internet star stirred up trouble left and right, getting in fights and using fake IDs to get into nightclubs. Nguyen fled to Queens, NY when she was 16 in order to escape her gang-related past.
Two years after living in the Big Apple, Nguyen had turned her life around and went back to Houston, where she was discovered at a local mall by a Playboy magazine scout. It ended up being the break she desperately needed. Soon after, the former tomboy found herself living in Los Angeles, CA and appearing on Playboy’s website, as a “Cyber Girl of the Week” and then “Cyber Girl of the Month” – the first Asian-American to get the title – in 2002. Nguyen also made a splash in the import racing scene, appearing in various publications and car shows like Hot Import Nights.
A year after appearing on the official Playboy site, Nguyen was invited to join MySpace.com by its founder and her friend Tom Anderson. Her popularity on the site soared dramatically overnight, thanks to millions of viewers and friends who loved her MySpace page’s sexy photos, blunt commentary, and in-your-face profile attitude. The diminutive model also released her own songs such as “F*ck Ya Man” through the site, that was later categorized (perhaps even self-described) as “skank-pop” – obnoxious lyrics, dime store melodies, and oozing of sexual innuendo. Nguyen also set the MySpace standard for garnering the most friends, leaving her at the top of the site’s food chain. “Once they saw how I worked it, everyone did what I did and started promoting themselves,” Nguyen later revealed.
Becoming the biggest MySpace star to come out of obscurity was a career move which Nguyen used to branch out into other media, making herself some serious dough along the way. She appeared in various reality shows like “Surviving Ted Nugent” (VH1, 2003) and hosted “Pants-Off Dance-Off” (Fuse, 2006-), until MTV decided to offer Nguyen her own show. “A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila” premiered on Oct. 9, 2007, and centered on the self-proclaimed bisexual weeding out her potential mates – 16 straight men; 16 gay women – to find her true love. Unapologetic for her promiscuity, Nguyen was criticized for taking feminism a few steps back, yet she sought out to show that being “skanky” was empowering. “We girls have a right to get nasty, too,” she sang on the song “Playgirl Central.” By the end of the series’ first season, Nguyen had picked a male winner by the name of Bobby, yet their relationship only lasted a few months – that is until the second season of “A Shot At Love” premiered in April 2008. Bobby later claimed Nguyen never returned his calls and e-mails, only adding fuel to the fire that the whole dating show was nothing but a means to an end for the network and its fame-hungry star.
In addition to making men and women fight for her love on season two of her reality show, Nguyen branched out to movies as well, with a cameo appearance as a Hooters Girl in the 2007 Adam Sandler-comedy “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.” She also signed on to rapper will.i.am’s label, and released the single “I Love You” on iTunes in February 2007, where it became the most downloaded song a month later. Rounding out her “skank-ified” world domination was Nguyen’s foray into fashion, with the site, Tilafashion.com.