The Untold Truth Of Michael Bublé
Michael Bublé's massive popularity as a singer is perhaps a bit unusual. Eschewing popular genres such as pop, rock, and country, Bublé instead exhumed the swinging big-band music of the 1940s and '50s with a goal of popularizing the classic hits of the Great American Songbook.
If Bublé's initial goal was to carve out a unique niche for himself within the musical landscape, it didn't take long to wildly surpass those expectations. As Billboard reminds, he's had six No. 1 singles on the Adult Contemporary charts and charted 21 Top 10 hits. Having sold a whopping 75 million albums, Bublé has also staked a claim as Bing Crosby's heir to the "King of Christmas" title with the enduring popularity of his 2011 album "Christmas," which surpassed sales of 15 million in 2019. In celebration of the album's 10th anniversary in 2021, "Christmas" was rereleased as a "Super Deluxe Box Set, coinciding with a new NBC holiday special, "Michael Bublé's Christmas in the City."
To find out more about the Canadian-born crooner who's become synonymous with the holiday season, read on to discover the untold truth of Michael Bublé.
He once worked as a salmon fisherman
Born and raised in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, Michael Bublé learned the value of hard work early on. As ABC News noted, as a teenager, he spent six summers out on the water to help his dad in the family business. "My father was a fisherman, and I was a fisherman, and my father's father was a fisherman," Bublé said in an interview with NPR. "It's hard work, but I found great camaraderie in it."
He began working as a commercial fisherman when he was just 14, he told The Guardian, which involved "going up the coast from Vancouver for two months in summer, working 20-hour days with my father." While the job was a perilous one, working on a fishing boat also taught Bublé about "common respect," something he's carried with him later in life throughout his journey to stardom.
Bublé also shared the somewhat odd tradition that he and the other members of the crew embraced while fishing. "We'd kiss the first salmon that came on board, on the lips, for luck," he told The Guardian. "And I tell you, I've kissed worse things since."
Other pre-fame gigs included singing telegrams and acting on The X-Files
Catching salmon off the coast of British Columbia wasn't the only job that Michael Bublé had before hitting it big in the music biz. Asked to single out his "worst pre-fame gig" in an interview with Parade, he recalled once delivering "singing telegrams," but admitted, "I wasn't very good because I don't have a big, loud voice." Sometimes, he added, he wouldn't even get paid for his work. "It was tough on the ego," he recalled.
Another job he had on his road to stardom was within the realm of showbiz, landing "a very small part" on Vancouver-shot Fox sci-fi series "The X-Files." "I was a sailor," he said of the bit part, which he took because "I just needed the money — my singing career was nonexistent at that point."
His first foray into television acting proved to be his last, he told TVLine. When Bublé — a mere extra — took a hot dog from the craft table meant for cast and crew, he was caught red-handed and immediately fired. "And this woman said I would never work again in Hollywood," he said. "I would be blacklisted and I would never, ever work in the business!"
He credits his grandfather and a Vancouver rock star as his musical inspiration
Michael Bublé credits his admiration for the kind of music popularized by the likes of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett to his grandfather. As the singer told ABC News, it was his grandfather who introduced the future star to iconic artists from the past whose influence on the pop charts had long since waned. "And he would let me listen to Mel Torme or Ella Fitzgerald or Sinatra or the Mills Brothers," Bublé recalled.
In addition to his grandfather, another musical inspiration he cited was Canadian rocker Bryan Adams, who also hails from Vancouver. According to Bublé, he became "infatuated by the fact that this man had had this huge success and that he was from my hometown." He said, "I dreamt of being a singer and an entertainer even from the time I was 5 or 6 years old, so to know that this guy had done it was really inspirational."
As it turned out, Bublé would be taken to the next level of stardom by the same guy who guided Adams' career, Vancouver talent manager Bruce Allen. In 2013, the two artists finally collaborated, recording the single "After All," which they also performed live.
Michael Bublé got his big break at a retro Vancouver nightclub
In a weird way, Michael Bublé owes at least part of his success to the cigar-smoking boom that took hold in the mid-1990s. That, recalled Vancouver's Georgia Strait, was when the BaBalu lounge opened, a cigar-friendly Cuban-style throwback. The aspiring young singer's interest in music from that era proved to be a perfect fit, with the Vancouver Sun noting that Bublé performed regularly on a tiny stage while backed by a band dubbed The Smokin' Section.
As Bublé recounted in Michael Heatley's book "At This Moment: The Story of Michael Bublé," that was where he learned the art of performing, belting out tunes to a disinterested audience who considered his singing to be little more than retro background music. "They came to meet a woman or get wasted, but I learned my craft," he said of his BaBalu days. "It taught me how not to reek of desperation, how to step back and try to be charismatic and let them fall in love with me."
Not coincidentally, when he self-released his first album, Bublé went with the title "BaBalu."
Here's how he met wife Luisa Lopilato
Michael Bublé was performing in Buenos Aires, he told an Irish talk show, when he spied "the most beautiful girl I had ever seen" in the audience. Initially elated, he was then "bummed" upon realizing he'd probably never see her again. However, luck was on his side when he and that woman, Luisana Lopilato, wound up attending the same party later that night. Yet his excitement at seeing her again was dimmed by the fact that they could barely communicate (she understood little English, and he couldn't speak Spanish), and she was accompanied by man who was so "incredibly good looking" that it left Bublé feeling low.
As a result, Bublé revealed to a Spanish talk show (via Canoe), he proceeded to get "very drunk" and finally confronted her date, telling him that his "girlfriend is very beautiful" — only to have the guy inform him that Lopilato "is into you." This left Bublé feeling as if he had "a chance" with her, only to realize she had a huge misconception about him when he overheard her on the phone, telling her mom, "I met Michael Bublé tonight, but he is so gay."
After overcoming those mutual misunderstandings, they wed in 2011.
He paused his career at its peak to focus on the health of his son
Just a couple of years after their 2011 wedding, Michael Bublé and Luisana Lopilato started a family, welcoming son Noah in 2013. The new parents were on the top of the world, but in 2016, they received some heartbreaking news: Noah had been diagnosed with cancer. As The Sun subsequently reported, Noah was suffering from liver cancer and he immediately began undergoing chemotherapy.
Both Bublé and Lopilato, an actor, immediately put their careers on hold in order to focus on their son's health. As he later explained in an interview with "CBS Sunday Morning," they had "no choice" in the matter. "There was just, you know, come together as a family, put your head down, pray lots, and just survive."
In 2017, Noah's cancer went into remission, and he's remained cancer-free ever since. Understandably, Bublé said, the experience had left him fundamentally changed. "I live a much deeper life now," he told People. "I don't wish that kind of pain upon any human being, but I do feel that when you've truly suffered, when you've truly felt fear and loss, it allows you to live a deeper life," he added.
His wife pushed him to do TikTok videos
In 2021, Michael Bublé joined the growing legions of celebrities to embrace TikTok. During an appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," he revealed that making TikTok videos wasn't something he ever aspired to do until wife Luisana Lopilato eventually wore him down and talked him into it. "I was never going to do it," he said. "My wife said to me, 'You're so funny and so stupid, why don't you do the TikTok?'"
Admitting he felt that doing little TikTok videos was "beneath" him, Bublé wound up succumbing to the lure of TikTok and came to love it. "I'm an idiot, and it's the most fun," he insisted, quipping, "I'm not even going to tour anymore. I just want to do TikTok."
To be fair, Bublé launched his TikTok career with a bang. His very first post, in which he mimes the voice of a young child giggling, racked up an impressive 3.4 million likes. A subsequent eight-second video, which was liked more than 3 million times, mocked his association with Christmas with onscreen text reading, "When I hear there are only 100 days until Christmas," followed by the singer barreling into a room at top speed before catching a stuffed Grinch toy someone tosses to him.
He once sang the Canadian national anthem to an empty hockey arena
Michael Bublé has performed all over the world, singing in venues ranging from concert halls to stadiums. It was during the summer of 2020, however, when he delivered what was arguably one of his strangest performances ever when he sang the Canadian national anthem in an empty hockey arena.
As ET Canada reported, the Chicago Blackhawks were facing off against the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place in Edmonton. Bublé, however, was in Vancouver at the time, so he sang the anthem, "O Canada," to thousands of empty seats in Vancouver's Rogers Arena, with his performance displayed on a large screen in the other arena (it was also shown prior to that same night's game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Pittsburgh Penguins). As one Twitter user joked, "#Canada keeps Michael Bublé on ice until they need him for national anthems ... or it's #Christmas."
As well-intentioned as Bublé's performance may have been, he managed to tick off French-speaking Montreal fans — who took to Twitter to complain that he only sang the anthem in English.
He finds Matthew McConaughey's voice to be an insomnia cure
As it happened, when Michael Bublé made a 2019 appearance on Britain's "The Graham Norton Show," another guest was Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey. That was when the singer had a revelation to share about McConaughey, when host Graham Norton asked if the actor knew that he "plays a special part" in Bublé's life.
McConaughey was intrigued. "I play a special part in your life?" he asked Bublé, who then went on to explain. "Well, I mean, my wife and I sleep with you almost every night," Bublé quipped, as McConaughey nodded in recognition. "There's an app called 'Calm,' and I have insomnia, and [McConaughey] has the most beautiful voice," he shared, referencing the actor's voice work for the app.
As soon as he turns on the app and hears McConaughey's voice, Bublé revealed, he nods right off. However, he added, his wife, Luisana Lopilato, isn't nearly as much of a fan, imitating her Argentinian accent when she chides him: "The man is talking in the bed again, Mike."
He launched his own fragrance
Like so many entertainers before him, ranging from Justin Bieber to Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Bublé has entered the realm of scent by launching his own branded fragrance. As the singer told InStyle, creating a fragrance was something he had to be convinced to do. "My initial reaction when I was approached to do a fragrance around 12 to 15 years ago was no," he said. Admitting he "was apprehensive at first," the more he learned about the art and science that go into creating fragrances, his interest grew.
According to Bublé, "a lot of time and effort" went into developing the fragrance, dubbed By Invitation. However, he added, he wouldn't know if the scent would work until he received the verdict from his ultimate arbiter, wife Luisana Lopilato, knowing that "she'd be brutally honest with me." When "she loved it," he knew By Invitation was a winner.
That was proven when Bublé appeared on the HSN shopping network to sell his new fragrance. As an HSN press release proclaimed, the 21,000 units being offered had completely sold out within 24 hours.
He had vocal cord surgery in 2016
Back in 2016, Michael Bublé left fans a bit concerned when he announced plans to cancel some upcoming shows in order to undergo surgery on his vocal cords. "To my fans: I wanted to let you know that I am bowing out of some upcoming events due to pending vocal surgery which will require a period of time for me to rest and recover," he revealed via Twitter. While the recuperation period would require that he neither talk nor sing, he wrote that his doctors assured him that they "expect a complete recovery."
While the doctors' predictions proved to be right on the money, with no apparent ill effect on his voice, Bublé was forced to bow out of two supremely high-profile events. "I was scheduled to be honored at The Canadian Governor General Performance Arts Award Gala on June 11th," he continued, noting that the award presentation was being pushed up to the following year. In addition, he was also forced to bail on being part of a tribute to late soul singer Marvin Gaye at the famed Kennedy Center.
He blew up the internet with the way he eats corn on the cob
Michael Bublé is no stranger to going viral online, be it for his wacky Facebook videos with wife Luisana Lopilato or his view-generating antics on TikTok. However, there is one viral moment for which he will always be remembered, involving the controversial manner in which he consumes corn on the cob.
Reddit users became particularly enamored of a photo that emerged of Bublé strolling through Disneyland, eating a cob of corn from the top down in much the same way someone would eat a hot dog or a popsicle, as opposed to the traditional manner of tackling the cob from the side.
As is usually the case, Bublé proved to have a sense of humor about the bizarre outrage was generated by his corn-chewing. "This is vegetable harassment !!! What I do with my Cobb is nobody's business," he wrote in a tweet that included the original photo. To drive his point home even further, he added the hashtags #mesocorny, #paparazzi, and #shuckme.
He was once in a pretty serious relationship with Emily Blunt
Prior to meeting future wife Luisana Lopilato, Michael Bublé spent a few years in a high-profile romance with actor Emily Blunt; in fact, Blunt even contributed vocals to his cover of "Me and Mrs. Jones." When the two broke up in 2008, there were allegations at the time that the split was due to his cheating.
Blunt didn't exactly quell those rumors when she appeared on "The Howard Stern Show," and commented on the breakup by saying, "It's complicated," adding, "I never want to talk about it."
Bublé, however, has consistently denied that infidelity had anything to do with the split. "It didn't end because of cheating," Bublé said, well, bluntly, in an interview with ET Canada. The relationship came to an end, he contended, "because we weren't right for each other, and we are now exactly where we're supposed to be in our lives."