The name's Estefan, Gloria Estefan

At first, it sounds like it's totally made up: the CIA trying to recruit Gloria Estefan.

You know, what was she going to do? Sneak out of gigs before the encore - like Duffy on her bike - and rush up to grab secret plans from a dead letter box?

But it turns out that the approach wasn't made to the pop star version of Estefan:

At the time the young singer was working as an interpreter for US Customs at Miami International airport.

"They realised I was someone who could pass as a regular person without raising any eyebrow," she told the Miami Herald.

Yes, Gloria. You could pass yourself off as a regular person because, erm, you were a regular person at the time.

Gloria hints that she might have never said never at all:

"Maybe I made the decision [to do it]," she said "What better cover than going around as a singer, talking to presidents, talking to kings, close to all the people they wanted access to? So, who knows?"

Yes. You've been spying, Gloria. Because what foreign potentate wouldn't reveal the location of their weapons of mass destruction when asked by the woman who sang Doctor Beat?