In the historiography of Cuban music there have been artistic couples who shared life and scene, but few lived a relationship as deep and lasting as that of Celia Cruz and Pedro Knight. Destiny crossed them in the fifties, when Celia became the voice of the Sonora Matancerathe legendary Cuban orchestra, in which Pedro had joined as second trumpet player.
The first meeting occurred in the studios of the CMQ radio station and the connection between them was immediate. However, in several interviews, the “Queen of Salsa” would confess that Pedro had a reputation as a womanizer, so at first she doubted starting a relationship that transcended professional limits. “When Pedro was throwing me the hook, he sat on his trumpet and a lot of girls came around him. Don’t think that he was soft and low on salt. He’s hot now, but when I met him he was delicious,” Celia joked in an interview given by both to the Colombian channel RCN.
However, Knight’s insistence finally managed to win her over: “I stopped seeing all the women: I forgot about each and every one of them because Celia was the most special woman in the world,” Pedro confessed to the Miami Herald in 2004 about the beginnings of that romance. On another occasion, Celia assured, with the humor that characterized her: “Pedro fell so far behind me that he caught me out of fatigue. 28 years have passed that to me seem like days. He always lived up to his last name, because Knight means knight and he first earned my affection as a friend.”
After leaving Cuba for Mexico, thanks to a work contract with Sonora Matancera, the couple settled in the United States, where they were married on July 14, 1962. The couple found in exile not only their new home, but also the opportunity to skyrocket their success. from the Queen of Salsa. From then on, Knight decided to dedicate himself fully to his wife’s career as his own manager: he organized her tours, took care of every detail of her professional life, and his role transcended the administrative, because Pedro was also her emotional support. “When I married Pedro I felt happy, liberated. I didn’t know how to cook, he taught me,” she confessed in the aforementioned interview. Their relationship was so solid that Celia would recognize him as her “guardian angel” and affectionately named him “Little Cotton Head” for his iconic whitish hair.
On several occasions, Celia even claimed that Pedro represented 50% of her career. “He is half of Celia Cruz,” she said in another interview for the program “En Couple” in 1992. “If I have anything today, even financially, although I don’t like to talk about it, it is because of Pedro,” she added. However, with the humility that characterized him, Knight always responded that she was the undisputed star, and he was just a discreet support. “I tell her that she doesn’t need me. She has earned that. She has worked very hard. I have helped her in part, but nature gave her that gift.”
Although fate did not grant them children together, Celia and Pedro’s marriage was marked by complicity and unconditional mutual dedication. When they had just celebrated 30 years of marriage together, Pedro said: “She is my everything. If I get sick, she gets sick too. It’s like we were twins.”
People close to their relationship, such as Omer Pardillo, representative of “La guarachera de Cuba”, he mentioned on one occasion that they both understood each other without speaking: “I imagine that like every couple they must have argued, but they never did it in front of anyone. Celia said that she didn’t like having a problem with Pedro and going to bed without fixing it. They were perfect for each other.” In another interview published in recent years in The sneeze described: “I can say that they were two bodies, but one soul. They adored each other.”
Celia rarely went on stage without being accompanied by her partner, during the more than four decades they were together. After his death at the age of 77, due to an advanced stage of brain cancer, Pedro’s health also began to deteriorate until his death in February 2007. At that time, many media reported that doctors described his death as due to a combination of low blood pressure induced by diabetes and “an emotional breakdown” due to the loss of his eternal love.
After the news, the renowned producer Emilio Estefan told the press that Pedro had confessed to him shortly before: ‘I want to die to be close to Celia’ and I think that the two of them will finally be together. We are losing a great Cuban musician, but I know that he wanted to be with her and she was waiting for him, so tonight in heaven they are celebrating.” As was their will, the remains of Celia and Pedro rest side by side in a mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery, New York, as a symbol of a union that not even death could separate.
