Her Name Was Dolores

by Pete Salgado

  Jen wanted nothing more than for her kids to be happy and successful in life. She had learned to give one hundred percent to everything she did, and she expected nothing less from her children. Regardless of whether they wished to be dishwashers, gardeners, nurses, artists, or astronauts, all Jen cared about was making sure that they knew how to commit to reach their goals, often reminding them, “Whatever you choose to do, do your best at it and give it your all.” Even though she had become the family’s sole provider, Jen took her role as a mother very seriously. She may not have been present for some of their day-to-day events, but she always made sure to make time for them when she was home, encouraging them to have an honest and open relationship with her. And they knew that even though she had to be on the road to provide for them, she always had their backs.

  Jen was a mama bear in all her glory and was ready to fight tooth and nail for her children no matter the circumstances. That’s why I believe having failed to protect Chiquis from her exhusband’s abuse made her feel like she had failed her daughter in the worst possible way, and it filled her life with guilt, a guilt that sometimes led her to overcompensate while raising her, becoming somewhat of an enabler when the going got tough at home. I experienced firsthand the many difficult times Chiquis had to face throughout her early life, her mother’s second divorce, her father’s trial, her mom’s sex tape, and countless other highs and lows in Jen’s roller coaster of a life. Chiquis proved to be a resilient young lady, much like her mother, but she was also struggling to find herself in a family filled with big characters, a quest she clearly embarked on once their reality show was released.

  It was during the start of I Love Jenni that we first noticed major changes in Chiquis’s behavior. With the boyfriends and the partying and the excessive shopping, she was suddenly becoming another one of those Hollywood brats, which went against every fiber of Jen’s being. Needless to say, that’s when this mother-daughter relationship began hitting bigger hurdles. The very first crackles of their estrangement really happened in the fall of 2011 when Jen decided it was time to start teaching her daughter the importance of fiscal responsibility.

  Until then Chiquis worked at Jen’s office, running all the admin related to Jen’s bustling career. In this capacity Chiquis controlled her mama’s accounts, gathering Jen’s earnings and paying all the bills. Jen was never a fan of using credit cards, but every now and again, like everyone else, she had to. On one of those occasions her card was denied. Being Jenni Rivera, this was a complete embarrassment. She called Chiquis right away, inquiring about the situation.

  “Hey, Princess, what’s going on with the card?” Jen asked.

  “Oh, they must have blocked it, Mom,” said Chiquis, dodging the issue.

  However, when Jen’s cards began getting denied with more frequency, it became clear she needed to take matters into her own hands. She knew it was time to do a little digging. What she found was unsettling: charges for trips to Las Vegas with bottle service and bills racking up $3,500 a night, plane tickets, clothes, and all types of lavish living that were above and beyond anything Jen herself would entertain. What the hell, thought Jen. Did I raise a Kardashian? Jen flipped. We’re talking about a woman who moved mountains to get her family off the ground and give them a better chance at life, someone who worked tirelessly for every single penny she earned. Jen knew the value of a dollar all too well. Once she started doing well, when she wanted something, yeah, she got it, but she didn’t go out and blow her money for the hell of it. She wasn’t cheap, but life had taught her to be frugal, so Chiquis’s behavior had gone too far in her book. Jen realized the time had come to stop enabling her daughter and start teaching her about accountability.

  “I think you have a problem,” Jen told her daughter point-blank on the phone one day. “You don’t need all this stuff. We have plenty.”

  Chiquis had no way out. She knew she had dug herself in too deep. Her lifestyle had finally caught up with her. She apologized and admitted to her mom that she had a problem with money.

  “If that’s true, I think the best thing is for you to earn some independence by learning responsibility,” Jen said.

  And with that, Jen decided that the time had come for Chiquis to move out of the house and live on her own. Jen figured that if Chiquis went out and earned her own money and paid her own bills, she’d eventually learn how to better manage her own finances and truly understand the value of each dime in her pocket. At the time we were also shooting Chiquis in Control, a spin-off of our I Love Jenni series. Jen thought we should back out of production as part of this new effort to really educate Chiquis on the subject of autonomy; however, knowing it was Chiquis’s first time out in the real world, Jen gave her $100,000 to help her embark on this new journey. Meanwhile, Chiquis also received another $100,000 from the production company, so she was well-armed to get her series up and running with this financial boost and finally have the independent life she had so yearned for when she ran away from home a few years earlier.

  It all seemed like a fantastic starting point. Chiquis was well-poised to hit the ground running, but her show flopped. The first two episodes were flat and stale, so the network called a meeting to let us know they couldn’t air it as is. Their one condition to move forward was if Jen and the kids were more involved. Jen agreed to support the show and her daughter, and stepped in with cameos by her and her children. However, this was a rude awakening for Chiquis. She believed she’d be able to follow her mother’s lead, but without her mother’s support, it was a no-go. And so began a burgeoning tension between them that would eventually implode causing irreparable damages to their lifelong bond.

  Those were trying times, but they helped Jen grow as a mother in patience, love, and kindness, doing all she could to push her daughter in the right direction in hopes that she would find her way, until their relationship hit yet another hurdle: Angel del Villar. When Chiquis started dating Angel, president and owner of Del Records, Jen was leery of him from the get-go. He had a reputation that Jen didn’t like and most definitely didn’t want that for her daughter, but there wasn’t much she could do. After all, she was the one who had suggested Chiquis become independent and try her hand at making her own decisions. So there she was, doing what her mama said; only instead of finding her own way, she had found Angel.

  Once the summer of 2012 came around, the relationship between Angel and Chiquis heated up, and they were clearly an official item. Jen still didn’t approve, and Angel knew this, so he decided to throw Chiquis a party at his house just for her family. I wasn’t planning on attending, but Jen called and invited me to come along, so I said yes. I knew she had her doubts about this guy and wanted help deciphering him. I honestly thought that Angel was finally trying to extend an olive branch to Jen. There was booze, music, and dancing, and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Then Angel approached Jen and asked to speak with her privately. Once again, he seemed sincere in his gentlemanly approach.

  “I love your daughter,” he said, “and I want to be with her.”

  “What do you really want?” she asked. Jenni wasn’t having it. She didn’t buy the whole chivalrous act because she just couldn’t get around the fact that he was still married to another woman. Yes, he was married, and that was not only completely unacceptable to her, it also proved that he couldn’t possibly be as serious about Chiquis as he stated. Suffice to say, that party did nothing to win Jen over, but Angel stayed the course and stuck by Chiquis, despite being married. He even helped her finance her new business venture, a blow-dry salon. When she fell short for little things like the electric sign, Angel swooped in to save the day. He also took over Jen’s role as Chiquis’s chief sponsor and provider of luxuries. It went against everything Jen was hoping to teach her daughter by asking her to move out of the house, but again, there was nothing she could do at this point but just sit back and watch it all unfold before her eyes.

  Then came Jacqie’s wedding in September 2012. You alread
y know about the whole Elena debacle that happened a few days after this big event, but something else had gone down earlier, something that didn’t just anger Jen—it actually worried and frightened her. A few days prior to the wedding, Jen’s brother, Gustavo, received a private message through Facebook from a woman who claimed to be Angel’s wife. In it she told Chiquis to leave her husband alone. She explained that they had children and homes together and that, although she’d been in Mexico attending family business, she knew what Angel had been up to.

  Shocked, Gustavo immediately contacted Jen and showed her the message. She then filled me in on what was going on. As if that weren’t enough, we also had reason to believe Angel’s scorned wife had ties to important people in Mexico, the type you don’t want to mess with, so now what? As always, the show must go on.

  Jacqie’s big day arrived, and as I got dressed, it already felt like a disaster in the making. This was a big day for Jen. Her second daughter was getting married, the first one of her children to get hitched. It should’ve been a glorious moment, but it was fraught with palpable tension. On one hand, Jen had to deal with some wedding drama: Jacqie’s groom had previously dated Jen’s sister Rosie—a fact that still unsettled certain members of the Rivera family on the supposedly blissful day, like Juan who, much to Jen’s disappointment, was unable to hide his long face throughout the ceremony. On the other hand, I could tell that even though Jen was doing all she could to be present and happy for her princess on this wonderful occasion, her mind kept wandering back to that message. The clash with Chiquis had stopped being only about a mother’s concern for her daughter. Now it was also about pissing off the wrong family, the kind of family that would have zero qualms dealing with your ass, which only reinforced Jen’s opinion about her daughter’s love interest.

  After much thought, Jen decided to confront the situation head on, as always. She talked to Chiquis and told her what was going on, making her feelings about Angel crystal clear, but Chiquis wouldn’t have it. Rather than paying attention to what Jen was telling her, she immediately accused her mom of being a hypocrite for accepting Jacqie’s husband, knowing he’d also once dated Rosie, and not accepting Angel in the same way. She wasn’t able to see how different these situations were. Blinded by love, she couldn’t see that she was playing with fire, and all Jen was hoping to do was stop her from getting seriously burned.

  As if all this drama weren’t enough, shortly after Jacqie’s wedding, in a matter of weeks, Jen found out about Elena’s dalliances with Chiquis, losing her best friend in the process, and then came across that heart-wrenching surveillance footage, which culminated in her filing for divorce and cutting ties with her daughter for good. As was customary with the Riveras when the shit hit the fan, Jen called a family meeting to prep them for the upcoming divorce and also talk about the whole Chiquis situation. Here’s the clincher: one might think the footage would have been enough to prove Chiquis’s betrayal, but since the video didn’t show exactly what happened between Esteban and Chiquis in that closet, even though Jen deemed it radically inappropriate, the family had their doubts regarding Jen’s harsh accusations. Meanwhile, Chiquis never really gave Jen a clear explanation justifying why she had been in that closet with Esteban. She simply denied it, claiming Jen was out of her mind.

  So when Jen walked into that family meeting and gave them the play by play, she suddenly found she had little to no support, until the person she least expected took the stand and defended her like no other. She thought Juan would be the one to take her side, having always been her consentido, the one she’d babied and taken on tour and coddled. But while Juan sat at the table quietly, the one who first jumped up and spoke was none other than Lupillo. Jen loved her brother Lupillo dearly. They had always loved each other, but there was no denying that the past decade had been fraught with competition and sibling rivalry. Their careers had taken a toll on their relationship, so seeing Lupillo speak up for her took her completely by surprise. “Look, sis, right or wrong, you’re my sister, and it’s my obligation to support my sister not my niece. If you’re wrong, then we’re going to be wrong together, but I’m supporting you.”

  Jen and Chiquis had had other falling outs, but this was the first time her brother came forward and made her feel his full support—it was also the first time she’d felt his full support in one of the crucial moments of her life. She was moved beyond words. After the meeting, as Jen drove home, she called me to share this unbelievable moment, and I rejoiced with her. Every cloud has a silver lining, and this time around the silver lining was finally being able to bury the hatchet with her brother Lupillo. A spark of joy amid the darkest of days.

  Jen’s issues with Chiquis erupted into total estrangement and tore her apart. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what the hell her daughter had been doing in that closet with her husband. Filled with doubts and insecurities, having a gut feeling, but not knowing what to think, Jen’s pain worsened, but no matter how heart-wrenching this situation had become, she wasn’t about to go out and bash her daughter in public, in the media, because in the end, she loved her. She was a reflection of herself. Even through the pain, she wanted to protect her, but Jen and Chiquis’s problems were still far from over.

  In early November 2012, just about a month before the fatal crash in Mexico, Jen was invited to a music award show in L.A., and she’d decided to attend. As was usual with her, no matter what drama she was dealing with at home, she always managed to keep it together for her career. I hadn’t planned on being there with her until I got a worried call from Julie, her assistant. She told me Angel was roaming the area, and it looked like he had been drinking. I dropped everything, got in my car, and sped over there as fast as possible, knowing this couldn’t amount to any good. Meanwhile, Jen had a camera crew with her getting footage for I Love Jenni, and as they were making their way down one of the narrow hallways backstage toward her dressing room, Angel aggressively bumped into one of our cameramen with a no-one-gets-in-my-way attitude, shoving his way down the corridor like a high school bully. Jen hadn’t noticed any of it until she saw the look on my face when I walked into her dressing room. She immediately realized that something was off. As she continued to sign autographs and snap pics with fans, she asked me, “What’s going on?”

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. “Let’s avoid any drama with Angel.” I explained to her that he was there and seemed to be sniffing around for trouble. So I arranged for a car to meet her out front, where she got in with her makeup and hair stylists as I walked over to my own vehicle, which I’d valet parked. As Jen’s car pulled away, she noticed a fan trying to say hi. Always ready to please her fans, grateful for their support, she rolled down her window to greet her, but not until that split second did she realize that standing next to this woman was Angel, who began talking shit and insulting her, calling her awful names right there on the street, in front of everyone, a moment that was captured on video and went viral years ago. Not one to stand down, Jen got out of the car like a true gangster and beelined over to him, only to be met by the barricade of security guards surrounding him, but that didn’t stop her. I ran over to her, made my way through the crowd, picked her up and brought her back to the car, but before getting back in, she stood on the door frame and got her two cents in there for everyone to see.

  “If you wanna talk, call me. When I pass by don’t talk to me, porque si tienes algo que decir, you say it in my damn face!”.

  Angel narrowed his eyes and replied, “Yeah, we’ll see,” with a smirk on his face that downright gave me the chills, but I had no time to process this because the crowds began to swarm around us, so I put Jen in the car and shut the door. As they zoomed off, I suddenly noticed she was being followed by a black van. I ran over to my car, drove out, and quickly realized I was being followed too. What the hell! We were near the Gibson Theater with shitty cell phone reception, so I couldn’t get through to Jen immediately. When I finally was able to connect, I said as calml
y as possible, “Don’t go home. Stay on the freeway. You’re being followed.” In a panic, Jen turned around and replied, “I see him, I see him!” Now it began to settle in: we were officially in danger. However, after driving a while longer, we managed to lose both vans. All I could think was that they were likely trying to send us a message to scare us. In any case, that night I went to Jen’s house and gave her a gun. I also set up a security guard on the street outside her house. I didn’t mention this last bit to her because I knew she wouldn’t agree, but I didn’t want us taking any chances—I wanted to make sure she was safe.

  What followed was a social media barrage attacking Chiquis. “That’s your boyfriend? That’s the guy you’re fighting for? That’s the man that you say loves you? That disrespects your mother?” Jen was pissed, and scared, and worried, but there wasn’t much else she could do.

  Meanwhile, the next morning I decided to take matters into my own hands. I couldn’t just sit around and wait, so I drove to Angel’s office. I felt we needed to hash out what had happened the night before. He wasn’t there, so I left a message and got a call back from him later.

  “Pete, it’s not personal. I have nothing personal with you—it’s with her.”

  We hung up and as I was driving home, while I was talking to Jen on my Bluetooth, I suddenly got rear-ended on the freeway. Shocked, I yelled out, “I got hit!” Jen couldn’t see what was going on, so she immediately assumed that what she heard on the other side of the line was gunfire, rather than my car being totaled. She freaked out. “Where are you?! Where are you?!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. I will never forget the care and concern in her voice that day as she was forced to entertain life without me. The irony of it all haunts me to this day.