Michelito Lagravere

Who is Michelito Lagravere?

Michel Lagravere Peniche, better known as Michelito, is a French Mexican child bullfighter.

The son of French-born former matador Michel Lagravere and Mexican Diana Peniche Marenco, Michelito claims to have started bullfighting at the age of five, and credits his love for the sport to being surrounded by bullfighters from an early age. His father runs a bullfighting academy in Mexico and his mother operates a string of bullrings in the Yucatán region. Being in close proximity to bullfighting from an early age helped him grow into the sport. However, not everyone in the Michelito household wanted him to become a bullfighter. His grandmother showed him gruesome bullfights on television in order to deter him from the sport when he was just four, but by then he had already joined his father's academy.

Since he first started bullfighting, he is credited to have fought 56 bulls weighing up to 500 lbs. He has been plying his trade mostly in Mexico and other Latin American countries due to the age restrictions which prevent him from fighting in Spain and also because a child bullfighter in Latin countries can earn around a hundred thousand dollars a year.