Gloria Estefan got to know her husband "as a human being" before anything else.

The 67-year-old singer met Emilio Estefan, 72, when he asked her to join his band that would eventually become known as Miami Sound Machine, and explained that their professional relationship helped her realise just what she was "getting into" with him by the time she decided to romantically commit.

She told the Daily Express newspaper: "Emilio said to me, 'I know you. Do you want to sit in and sing with the band? I didn't like being the centre of attention, and I was thinking: 'Oh my God...' But my mom heard Emilio and she told me: 'Yeah, sing!' Singing with a

band behind me, I remember feeling: 'Wow, this is actually really cool.

"Emilio was my boss for that first year.

"I really got to know him as a human being and a son before I did a as a boyfriend. I knew what I was getting into once we started dating."

The 1,2,3 hitmaker went on to have Nayib, 44, as well as 30-year-old Emily with Emilio, and recalled that once she became a mother, nothing else really "mattered" in her career and she found it all "very grounding" to have started a family.

She said: "It didn't matter how many people were out there yelling for me, off-stage I was mommy.

"We took our son on tour and included him in everything. Having a family to come home to in a hotel room, being there for me, was very grounding.

"Emilio and I never really wanted to go out partying anyway. To me, performing was partying, because I had such a good time at our shows. I'd spent my life taking care of my dad, with no social life, so I've never been the partying kind."

Gloria - who tied the knot with Emilio in 1978 - was then asked the "secret" to her long marriage adn admitted taht she and her husband are "very different" from one another but both prioritise family in the same way.

"We're very different personalities but, in the things that matter, we're on the same page: music, business, politics. Family is the number one priority for both of us. Also, neither of us have that 'It has to be how I want' ego, and ego ruins a lot."