One of the islands. Possibly. Her team asked us to caption it 'an island.'Photo: Wazel News chopper unit
Pop star Vela Rey has bought an island in the Palmetto Keys for a reported $14 million and cannot, her management confirmed on Tuesday, remember which one.
The purchase closed in August. Rey, 29, announced it on stage at the Harbor Bowl on Saturday, telling 40,000 fans she had "bought one of those," gesturing at the Keys, "the one with the trees." All of the Keys have trees.
Narrowing it down
Her management says the island is "definitely in the eastern Keys," is "at least four acres," and "has a dock, or will have." A spokesperson said the paperwork is "with the lawyers, who are on a boat, looking."
Rey herself, speaking to Wazel News after Sunday's show, said she had visited the island "twice, maybe three times" and would "know it when I see it, it's got a specific vibe." Asked to describe the vibe, she said "island."
"I bought it so I'd have somewhere to go that nobody could find. It's working better than I planned."
— Vela Rey
The Keys, from the chopper. Ms. Rey's is 'one of the green ones.'
The neighbors
Residents of the eastern Keys have been receiving deliveries addressed to Rey since September, including a hot tub, a second hot tub and "a very large speaker." The hot tubs are currently on Pelican Key, whose only resident, a retired harbor pilot, says he has "started using them, because what else."
The harbor board, which this week welcomed a pelican as a member, has asked Rey's team to collect the speaker "before the next full moon, for reasons we won't go into."
A pattern?
This is not Rey's first real-estate lapse. In 2024 she bought a penthouse at Marina Heights and discovered it eight months later while visiting a friend on the same floor. "She knocked," the friend told Wazel News, "and then she just kept walking down the hall, trying doors."
Her management says she has "learned from that" and has, this time, "written the island down." The note, they confirm, says "the island."
Rey's tour continues Friday in the city. She has promised fans a "big announcement" about the island, which her team says will be "the name of it, hopefully."