The 50-year-old singer hit the scene with his first English-language solo album in 1999, and life has never been the same.
He's got two GRAMMYs, seven Latin GRAMMYs and over 12 million album sales to his name, but 20 years ago, worldwide fame was just ramping up for Marc Anthony.
ET was with the singer at an autograph signing for the release of his first solo English-language album, Marc Anthony, in 1999, where he opened up about introducing himself to new audiences -- and their unorthodox way of welcoming him with open arms.
"The Skinny Man of Salsa: that's me," he said with a laugh, though at the time, some were giving him another nickname and comparing him to a young Frank Sinatra.
"That's something that, uh, it's so hard for me to accept," Anthony confessed. "It's flattering, especially when it comes from the people it comes from. I think Paul Simon was the first one to say it. I was just blown away."
"I think that that comes from this place, you know, the whole skinny thing. And he sang and he did movies. I'll leave it to that. I'm not going to believe it for a second," he joked. "It's so flattering."
Fans at Anthony's signing, however, weren't drawing any comparisons. They were there for Anthony, 100 percent. "I'm gonna cry when I see him!" one told ET, as he dished on a woman getting so excited that she bit his cheek onstage at a recent concert.
"I was in Chicago and in the middle of a concert. This fan comes up, and she sunk her teeth into my right cheek. So I thought, 'Alright, she'll let go at some point.' No," he recalled. "Security tries to separate us, but she's not letting go, so they start pulling her! I go, 'No, no, no, don't pull anymore. Let me try to talk to her.'"
"It probably took like five minutes to get her off. In the middle of the concert, I went off stage, put on some alcohol. She broke skin. I was just... I had never gone through that," he confessed. Ever the performer, Anthony got back out there to finish the show. "I remember singing and two songs after I felt my cheek starting to swell, and my eye started closing. I was like, 'Oh, this is not good. This is not good,'" he shared.
Even back then, the "I Need to Know" singer took fame -- the good and the bad -- all in stride. "That's just one of the stories," he teased.
See more on Anthony in the video below.
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