Verónica was born in Havana Cuba in August 20, 1980. In 1984 she came to the US with her mother (Mayra Rodriguez), leaving behind her family including her father (Arturo Aruca) and sister (Giselle Guzman). Her father came a year later and reunited with Veronica and her mother, while her sister was unable to meet them until thirteen years later. Mayra grew up with barely any money, and food was difficult to access. Veronica has spoken about her difficult childhood, and is since estranged from her father and unwilling to reconcile. As a child Veronica wittingly made her way through ballet school, by finding paying clients (other girls from her school who could afford the training) and survived very difficult circumstances at home.
In Hialeah Junior High her body began changing, she got her now famous curves, and began noticing the effect she had on boys was anything but usual. Her first boyfriend at the age of 15 was an artist of the same age who often painted her in little to no clothing. She continued school and after joining a local beauty pageant(she was 3rd princess or runner up) she met a photographer who would do all the pictures for the event, and noticed the photographer did not have much of an interest in the winner or any of the other girls but was instead captivated by Mayra’s photos and kept inviting her to his studio for free sessions. From this Mayra obtained her first modeling book and was signed by a local agent in Miami. This local agent sent her out for an audition for a local TV entertainment news show “Miami Hoy”(at the time Mayra was at Florida International University majoring in Psychology and Theater) she did not know much about being a reporter but figured she could act like one. She got the part and began as a correspondent and after a job well done was promoted to celebrity reporter and Host for the program. Here she got the opportunity to meet and interview celebrities like Donald Trump, Oscar de la Renta, Hugh Heffner, Dennis Rodman, and many more… throughout this time Veronica also traveled to NY to continue acting training at the famed Lee Strasberg Institute to fine tune her craft…until the station (owned by Media One) was bought out by AT&T and later closed. During this time Veronica also managed to land a made for TV movie called the Suitor and fit in commercial campaigns for Nike, L’Oréal, Coca Cola, and more.
Veronica then got a call from the Univision station, a new show was to begin hosted by Don Francisco, the top rated talk show host on the Network…and they wanted her to be their only model, but there was one catch. Due to her ample curves, her last appearance on screen for the day would entail her backside presence on camera before turning around to face the camera. Veronica did it gladly. Once the show aired, the model with the great backside became the talk of latins everywhere, so much so that even the American press got involved. FHM magazine, the top men’s magazine of the time,contacted Veronica’s publicist to ask for a feature spread on their magazine. Veronica agreed and after much mail requesting her return she went on to do the cover of the FHM exclusive collection book, which included top sex symbols of the decade, such as Pamela Anderson, Eva Longoria, Carmen Electra etc. and other covers for FHM, Maxim, Edge, Smooth, SSX, Smoke, Blackmen’s, Open your Eyes and more.
Her popularity on such covers made her website at the time one of the top requested websites with over 4 million hits biweekly. With this came many emails from soldiers stationed in Iraq asking for her posters and by now famous calendars. Veronica had her management send in a care package of approximately 5000 posters and it wasn’t long before the marines named her favorite pin up girl for the US marines and the USO asked her for a tour with our troops.The tour was a special Thanksgiving tour with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:General Cartwright, actor Wilmer Valderrama,comedian Russell Peters, traveling to six countries in six days, including Iraq, Afghanistan,Germany, Turkey, Africa, and Greenland. The troops’ response was overwhelming and although Veronica had decided not to do any more calendars, she quickly changed her mind and decided to do one in 2008 dedicating all proceeds to the USO.
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