Oscar de La Hoya - Life Outside The Ring

Life Outside The Ring

De La Hoya was accused in a lawsuit of rape in 1998. The lawsuit, filed in San Bernardino (Calif.) County Superior Court, alleged that De La Hoya raped a woman, who was 15 at the time, in a hotel room in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in June 1996. The case was settled out of court in 2001.

In 2000, he released a Grammy-nominated CD, entitled Oscar De La Hoya. Released through EMI International. The self-titled CD is a Latin pop album with 13 tracks in both English and Spanish written by Diane Warren and the Bee Gees.

On October 5, 2001, De La Hoya married Millie Corretjer. They have two children together. He also has a daughter, Atiana Cecilia, with Shanna Moakler.

In 2004, he debuted a clothing line of casual, and active-inspired apparel through Mervyns department stores. In the summer of 2004, De La Hoya starred in and hosted a boxing reality television series on Fox and Fox Sports Net titled The Next Great Champ.

In 2005, Golden Boy Enterprises announced the formation of Golden Boy Partners, a company focused on urban development in Latino communities.

In 2006, De La Hoya authorized a children's picture book titled Super Oscar published by Simon and Schuster and released in his name. The book was written by noted children's author Mark Shulman and illustrated by children's illustrator Lisa Kopelke. The book tells the story of young Oscar as a daydreamer, who uses his great physical ability to prepare an elaborate picnic for his entire neighborhood in just fifteen minutes. Written in English and Spanish, the book received unanimously positive reviews from the publishing review journals. Super Oscar was selected as the winner of the 2007 Latino Book Awards Best Bilingual Children's Picture Book of the year.

Around this same period, De La Hoya was featured in an early 2007 online advertising campaign by the Wall Street Journal that featured celebrity readers.

In September, 2007, De La Hoya's company Golden Boy Enterprises acquired The Ring, KO Magazine, World Boxing Magazine and Pro Wrestling Illustrated from Kappa Publishing Group.

In late 2007, photographs featuring De La Hoya cross-dressed in company of a woman not his wife were posted on a tabloid website and received extensive publicity across the internet. De la Hoya has denied the authenticity of the photos. His lawyer stated, "The photographs depicting Mr. De La Hoya's image that were posted online today by an obscure paparazzi Web site are fake. Many of the Web site's viewers (as reflected in postings on the site) identified the photos as 'a really bad photoshop job.' Unfortunately, with today's technology, anyone can make any photo seem like something other than it is." In September 2007, Mila Dravnel, the woman who sold the photographs, recanted her allegations against De La Hoya and denied the authenticity of the photographs. However, in May 2008, Dravnel sued De La Hoya for slander, but she dropped the lawsuit after experts determined the photographs had been digitally doctored. However, in De La Hoya's August 2011 interview with Univision, he confirmed that it was indeed him in the leaked 2007 photos. In a related event, model Angelica Marie Cecora also announced she would sue De La Hoya after an alleged drug-fueled romp at the Ritz-Carlton in Midtown, on March 15, 2011, where she says he went wild with drugs, booze, sex toys and cross-dressing antics.

On May 1, 2007, the Staples Center sports arena announced that a 7-foot (2.1 m) bronze statue of Oscar De La Hoya would join similar tributes to Los Angeles sports stars Magic Johnson and Wayne Gretzky at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. The statue was unveiled on December 2, 2008.

In February, 2008, Golden Boy acquired a 25% stake of Major League Soccer side Houston Dynamo, along with Brener International Group.

De La Hoya started a charitable foundation to help underprivileged youth to education. In 2008, he donated $3.5 million to the De La Hoya Animo Charter High School.

In June 2008, De La Hoya published his autobiography entitled "American Son".

He is a member of the 2008 United States Olympic Hall of Fame.

Oscar De La Hoya is on the front covers of the PS3, Xbox 360 and PSP versions of EASports' Fight Night Round 3.

In 2008, De La Hoya starred in a commercial alongside several Mexican boxing champions for Pronosticos lottery in Mexico. The 300 film inspired commercial featured the Mexican champions battling giants and other large creatures.

In early 2011, De La Hoya visited U.S. military personnel in Kuwait and Iraq under the auspices of the USO, holding boxing clinics and greeting the troops.

In May 2011, De La Hoya acknowledged he has a problem, but the nature of the issue was not revealed. "After doing an honest evaluation of myself, I recognize that there are certain issues that I need to work on. Like everyone, I have my flaws, and I do not want to be one of those people that is afraid to admit and address those flaws." He underwent treatment at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California for his alcoholism.