A day in the life of Enrique!

All day, fans posed the same question: What does Enrique Iglesias do in his spare time?

So simple a query, yet so weighted with hopes and dreams. Would he name something they have in common, shortening the gulf between celebrity and admirer?

But every time, the answer was the same: Mostly, he likes to sleep.

"Ninety percent of my time or more," Iglesias estimates of how much of his life is taken up by this If-It's-Tuesday-This-Must-Be-Toronto promotional touring. "I can't complain. I love my job. I want (people) to say I'm lucky, but at the same time, it's not an easy job."

At 24, Iglesias has sold 17 million albums, including more than 300,000 of his English-language debut, Enrique, here in Canada. He has a Grammy, he performed at January's Super Bowl, and is invited to sing with Pavarotti in France this summer. He travels by private jet.

But what he'd most like to do is go home to Miami to play with his dog, and windsurf. Instead, he's on the road, nursing a sore throat and daily thrilling hysterical, mostly young female fans by performing his hits Bailamos, Rhythm Divine and Be With You.

Here then, one day in the life of a hot young pop star:

Tuesday, April 4, 7 a.m.: Wake-up call.

Is Iglesias a morning person?

"No way," he says.

9 a.m.: At CTV to tape Canada A.M., he declines help with hair and makeup. He favours simple, casual clothes and doesn't travel with a stylist. When he landed here Monday night wearing a sweatshirt and ballcap, photographers initially mistook model-handsome Andreas Restrepo, Iglesias' assistant manager and best friend since age 10, for the star.

Now at CTV, about 100 excited contest winners -- all but five of them female -- sit around the stage. A CTV staffer repeatedly, sternly warns what behaviour will get them expelled: Moving toward Iglesias, taking flash photos.

The threat proves too effective. The crowd is subdued during Iglesias' performance, even after Canada A.M. co-host Dan Matheson implores them, "The more you dance, the better chance you have of getting on camera."

Iglesias is down-to-earth, self-deprecating. Three record labels rejected him before he got a deal. "They told me that I sucked," he tells Matheson.

He speaks of keeping his musical ambitions secret from his family, including his famous father, Julio. His teenaged songwriting was "very personal, like my own little diary."

And he tells a crowd-pleasing Canadian story: Five years ago, under the name Enrique Martinez, he spent three months in Markham recording his first album. Because his U.S. student visa expired -- he's never taken U.S. citizenship -- it took him three tries and a lawyer to get back across the border.

Although he's usually described as Latin because of his Spanish father, he's also half-Asian. His mother is Filipina. Mainly, he's American, having lived in Miami since age eight. His musical influences are Anglo: Bruce Springsteen, The Police, Lionel Richie, Billy Joel. He sees himself as a pop singer who sometimes performs in Spanish, rather than a Latin singer.

The audience poses other questions: Boxers or briefs? Boxers. Is his bellybutton an innie or an outie? "Which do you prefer?" When will he do a Canadian concert? Between September and Christmas.

A quick interview with CTV entertainment reporter Anne Brodie and he's out the door.

Noon: His van stops to pick up cheeseburgers, fries and Cokes at a drive-through window. "People want to be in this business because they think it's glamour, they think it's fame," he says. "You have your moments of glamour but it's not what people think." Back at the hotel, he catches an hour's nap.

2:30: At CHUMCity, MuchMoreMusic's Diego Fuentes, who is Chilean, asks, off-air, if they can discuss Augusto Pinochet. No, Iglesias says. "This is a music channel, right? People can turn on CNN for that sh--."

He tapes English and Spanish promos for AIDS fundraiser Fashion Cares.

Next, Iglesias agrees with CITY entertainment reporter Liz West that his musical ability must be "partially in my genes." But when she quips, shrewdly, "It's partially in your genes, partially in your T-shirts," he doesn't respond.

The packaging issue is a touchy one.

"It definitely helps, but the only thing that sells music is music," he tells me afterwards. "When people go in their cars, turn on their radios and hear a song, if they like it, they go out and buy it. Nobody buys a song because of a pretty face."

4:00: Fans need no urging to make noise as Iglesias performs live on MuchMusic. He's playful on the phone with Nathan, an 11-year-old phoning from Newfoundland. Veejay Rick Campanelli ultimately calls him "a tough man to read." True enough. Although consistently charming, Iglesias is also a practised interview subject. Questions about his family and his personal life are answered vaguely and briefly.

Later, he tells me how his father's stardom exposed him to the good and bad of the business. He could always sense who in his father's circle was a hanger-on and who was sincere. His grandfather was briefly kidnapped in Spain by crooks drawn to Julio Iglesias' fame and fortune.

"I feel like I'm pretty normal," he says. "Can you imagine if you have to be fake, if you have to be acting all the time? Can you imagine how tiresome that would be? It's tiresome already with the way I do it."

Enrique surrounds himself with friends, keeps his sense of humour.

Asked if he's interested in acting, he jokes, "My management told me I should get into pornos. They think I could be very prosperous."

5 - 7:30: At Bramalea City Centre, Iglesias can barely be heard over 2,000 screaming fans. The lucky 300 fans allowed autographs hand him roses, jewelry, cologne, stuffed toys, phone numbers and one naked photo. Iglesias kisses and hugs each one. Security pulls off those who won't let go. A female security guard's hand is bitten to bleeding by a teenaged girl. Two girls are carried out -- one hyperventilating, one with an injured shoulder.

A Mexican doctor once told Iglesias that young girls physically overcome at such events are in fact experiencing their first orgasm. Watching them, it doesn't seem far-fetched.

Afterwards, Iglesias is unfazed.

"Once you've done South America, this is like church," he says.

There, girls tipped over his van and chased his plane down the runway.

8 p.m.: Pressed for time -- they must make an 11 p.m. curfew at Montreal's Dorval Airport -- there's talk of cancelling back-to-back interviews with three CFMT-TV programs. Iglesias does the interviews.

9:30 p.m.: He falls asleep en route to the Malton airfield.

9:45 p.m.: Liftoff.

Yesterday and today, they did it all again in Montreal. Tomorrow, it's Germany. For a day. And so on.