A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled Wednesday in honor of versatile singer Ana Gabriel for a career that has included seven singles and three albums topping the Billboard Latin pop charts.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Latin entertainment news correspondent Jessica Maldonado and Henry Cardenas, CEO of the Cardenas Marketing Network, joined Gabriel to speak at the 11:30 a.m. ceremony at 6623 Hollywood Blvd. in front of the Hollywood Ballet.

The ceremony was broadcast on the Walk of Fame website, www.walkoffame.com.

“It’s hard to put words into words and express what the Hollywood star means to me,” Gabriel told City News Service. “There is a great sense of accomplishment, gratitude and accomplishment after many years of work, sacrifice, discipline and the promise made to my parents many years ago. It is a feeling of happiness at the bottom of my heart.”

Singing in the mariachi, ranchero and pop genres and romantic ballads, Gabriel has released 28 studio albums, 19 compilation albums and three live albums, selling over 40 million records worldwide.

Gabriel’s best-selling album is “Mi Mexico,” a ranchera-influenced, mariachi-backed pop album released in 1991, which included a tribute to Mexico’s most popular singer-songwriter, Juan Gabriel. , and opened the doors to his career in Europe.

Gabriel has won 13 times the Lo Nuestro Awards, which honor the best in Latin music, receiving its Award of Excellence in 2006. Gabriel received four Latin Grammy nominations and one Grammy nomination in 1990 for Best Latin Pop Performance for “Quien como tu.”

Gabriel said she considered the highlight of her career “not to reach the top but to stay on top for over 46 years”.

“I am fortunate to be an artist who has been able to move and evolve with the times,” said Gabriel. “It took discipline, hard work and 100% commitment to a label like Sony Music, which has supported my career for a long time.

“However, it wouldn’t have been the same without the commitment to my fans – all over the world, far and near – who have inherited my music from generation to generation.”

Born on December 10, 1955 in the small town of Guamuchil in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Gabriel’s family encouraged her to sing and sing from an early age, staging reenactments of a radio show. popular where she would play the first three notes of a song and her family would guess which song it was.

Gabriel first performed on stage at the age of 6, singing “Regalo de Dios” by singer-songwriter Jose Alfredo Jimenez. She recorded her first song on December 15, 1974.

His star is the 2,707th since the completion of the Walk of Fame in 1961 with the first 1,558 stars.