by Jenni Rivera
“That’s great, Sister. I am so happy!”
“And I’m not going to drink or do drugs or smoke.”
“Good, Sister. This is all good.”
“And I’m not going to have sex anymore.”
I stayed quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to respond nicely and truthfully to her.
“Sister, I love and support you, but you mean to tell me that you are going to be celibate?” I meant abstinent, but the concept was so alien to me that I didn’t even know the right word.
After that, I would ask her all the time, “How is the abstinence going?”
In 2008 Rosie was dating a guy, and one day she called me, panicked. “I’m in trouble. I slipped up.”
“Well, was it worth it?”
“Yeah, but it’s still a sin! I’m afraid the whole church is going to find out. And I’m the pastor’s sister!”
“How many people go to your church?” I asked.
“About four hundred.”
“Okay, so you’ll be embarrassed in front of about four hundred people? Let me make you feel better: I’m embarrassed in front of about four million.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was giving this guy a blow job and he recorded it, and the video has been stolen. It’s only a matter of time before it is going to show up on the Internet.”
I was devastated. My brothers were going to see this. My father. My children. Could anything be more mortifying? That weekend I had a big concert and I asked Rosie and my mom to come with me. I needed their support.
That Friday night, Rosie and I were lying in my bed and I was still so pissed. I couldn’t believe this little punk. He was one of my band members, and at the time he recorded the video, we were dating. I couldn’t believe he would do this to me. He copied the video, and then it got passed down the line. Everybody in the banda world already knew about it, and in time the rest of the Latin music world would know as well.
“What do I do?” I asked Rosie.
“Just tell the truth. It’s what couples do.”
I decided that I would call my brothers and my dad and tell them about the video before they heard it from anyone else. Juan was ready to fuck up the guy, of course. Lupe was the first one to make me laugh about it.
“Don’t be ashamed,” he said. “It’s good for a woman to suck a man’s dick. We need more women like that. I’m sure you did a good job.”
When I finished calling all of them, I turned to Rosie and said, “People are going to ask you about this. I want you to see it so you know what you are commenting on.” I held the phone to her face.
“No!” she screamed. “I don’t want to see that!”
“Watch it!” I insisted, holding the phone in her face. I wasn’t backing down until she watched it. I waited as she stared at the phone for four minutes. When the video ended, I said, “Aren’t I good at it? I should be a teacher. If I fail as a singer, I’ll just be a porn star.”
In June of that same year, 2008, I was arrested for assaulting a fan. I was onstage at my concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, when a man threw a full beer can onstage, nearly hitting me in the head, but it passed by me and hit one of my band members.
“Who threw that?” I said.
Three rows of fans pointed to one man.
“Get up here,” I told him.
The man walked up to the stage and I popped him on the head with my microphone. If it had been a normal microphone, it would just have left a bump. But this was a diamond-encrusted mic that my brother Juan had given me as a gift. It split the man’s head open at the eyebrow, and he started to bleed. Security took him offstage and I didn’t think much of it. You throw a beer can at me, you deserve what you get.
The Raleigh police did not agree. As soon as I finished the concert, they were waiting for me with handcuffs. They arrested me and held me on $50,000 bail. My brother Juan came to get me and posted the necessary $5,000. I got a lot of shit from the media for the incident. They said that I treated my fans horribly and I was a horrible person. I did feel bad about it, I will admit that. But if the situation played out again, I would probably do the same thing. I found out that the man’s wife was a big fan of mine and he had gotten drunk that night. He claimed he didn’t throw the beer can and that he only raised his hand because he thought he’d be able to dance with me. Which I guess you can say he did, in a way.
Again, people said I orchestrated the whole situation for the sake of media attention. Again, untrue. But I could see why people thought it was a publicity stunt. At the time, one of my hit singles was “Culpable o Inocente” (Guilty or Innocent). Since I got a pretty great mug shot out of that trip downtown, I decided to make T-shirts with a copy of my mug shot and the words “Culpable o Inocente” above the photo.
Fernando called me when he saw the mug-shot T-shirts. Though we were no longer dating, we never lost touch.
“Babe,” he told me, “you are so ghetto.”
“Shit. Thought I wasn’t?”
20
* * *
Beso! Beso!
Yo soy una mujer de carne y hueso.
Yo soy una mujer que se enamora.
(I am a woman of flesh and blood.
I am a woman who falls in love.)
—from “Yo Soy Una Mujer”
The man I’d popped with the microphone filed a lawsuit against me a few weeks after the concert in North Carolina. I guess that’s a sure sign that you’ve made it. Nobody pressed charges against me when I was a nobody, but now that I had money in the bank, I had to pay for my stupid mistakes. I settled with him out of court, and I flew him and his entire family to sit in the front row of my upcoming concert on August 16, 2008, at the Nokia Theatre.
My goal when I started out was to make it to the Gibson Amphitheatre, where I had seen many of my idols perform. Of course, after I achieved that in 2006 and 2007, I came up with another goal: I wanted to make it to the Staples Center, which holds 20,000 fans. The Nokia, which holds 7,100, didn’t exist when I was starting out. It had opened less than a year earlier, in October of 2007, and I considered it another stepping-stone on my way to the Staples. The concert was sold out that night, and for those three hours onstage I worked out all of my problems from the past year: Juan’s going to prison, the trial with Trino, the drama with Fernando, my parents’ ongoing divorce battle, the media backlash from my arrest, and the impending sex-tape bombshell. The tape still hadn’t become public, but I knew it was only a matter of time. For those three hours onstage I was able to air out my private issues in such a public way, but only those who were closest to me knew all the details.
A little over three weeks later, on September 9, 2008, I released my tenth studio album (and fourteenth overall), Jenni. It was the first album I produced myself. I wanted to have control, but I also wanted to establish myself as more than just a recording artist. I know I am not going to be singing forever, so it was important to me that the industry and future artists knew that I can also produce. Jenni was my first album to hit number one on Billboard’s US Top Latin Albums chart.
Then, in the first days of October, while I was enjoying the success of that album, my fears came true. The sex tape was posted on the Internet by an anonymous source, and it spread like wildfire. Within hours I felt as if the entire world had seen it. The media attention was huge and immediate. Telemundo and Univision talked about it constantly.
Many people thought I myself had leaked the tape for publicity, which couldn’t be further from the truth. That was the last kind of publicity I wanted. I was mortified and pissed beyond belief. And if I was going to intentionally leak a sex tape, I would have made sure the lighting was better. I was getting phone calls and e-mails asking if it was really me in the video and whether I wanted to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to crawl into a cave and disappear, but I couldn’t. That same month I found out I was nominated for a Latin Grammy for Best Ranchero Album for La Diva en Vivo. My fellow nominees w
ere Vicente Fernández, Pepe Aguilar, Pedro Fernández, and Los Temerarios. I was so proud to have my name listed beside theirs. The producers of the Latin Grammys asked me to perform on the show on November 13 with my brother Lupe. It was the first time we sang together at such a prestigious event. I was proud to stand beside my brother on that stage with our whole family in the audience. I didn’t win the Grammy that year, as suspected. When you are nominated in the same category as Vicente Fernández, you pretty much know what’s going to happen.
Unfortunately, despite the Grammy nomination and the hit album, people were still more interested in the fucking sex tape. I decided to turn the embarrassment into something positive. I wrote “Dama Divina,” which is an anthem for women to be proud of their bodies and their sexuality even if they do not look like a model or an actress. The guy in the video was twenty years younger than me. He was not Runner Boy. Not even close. When I crossed paths with him a few months later, I pounced on him and beat his ass. I bit him, busted his lip, and gave him a black eye before someone pulled me off him.
On December 7, 2008, I was scheduled to go back to Mazatlán, Mexico, to perform at a palenque. I was nervous because this was the city where the sex tape was filmed, and it was still all over the news there. I was nervous that the fans wouldn’t accept me and would judge me for it. I decided I would address the issue as soon as I got onstage to get it out of the way.
“I was afraid to come to Mazatlán,” I told the crowd. “Not because of what has been happening, but because one of the hardest parts of my life began here. That video that caused me so many tears.”
The crowd started to cheer my name over and over. At that moment the embarrassment melted away. I felt so loved and so relieved.
Halfway through the concert my manager, Gabo, told me, “Esteban Loaiza is here and he wants to meet you.” In Mazatlán and many parts of Mexico, Esteban Loaiza is an idol because he represented the country through baseball. He was a pitcher for more than twenty years in the big leagues, playing for several teams including the Chicago White Sox and the LA Dodgers. At the time, he was playing in Mexico. I invited him to come up on the stage. When he did, the fans started chanting, “Beso! Beso!”
For the sake of putting on a good show (and because he was handsome), I played along. “Can you believe it, mijo? These people want you to make me a baby,” I told him.
He said with a smile, “Let’s go.” As he was walking off the stage, I grabbed his ass.
After the concert he came backstage to talk to me. By this point in my career, a lot of men were afraid to approach me, but Esteban was fearless. I also knew that he could get any girl he wanted in Mexico, and I wasn’t about to kiss his feet. If he was interested, I was going to make him work a little.
He said, “Let me take you out to eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” I told him.
“A drink?”
“No, I’m not thirsty.”
“Let me show you my town then.”
“I’ve seen this town.”
“Well, do you breathe? What about a walk for some air?”
I liked that he wasn’t giving up, so I agreed. It was only the third after-party I had attended in my entire career. We went for a walk on the beach and then we went back to his house, where his buddies were all drinking. I had hurt my knee, so I took a painkiller and fell asleep in his room as he and his friends partied downstairs. I never even kissed the guy. The next night I caught my flight back home, but we kept in touch. We spoke every night until two or three in the morning. He never once mentioned the sex tape. He never mentioned the incident with the fan when I got arrested or any of the other media speculation about me. But I was sure he had heard of it, so I wanted to get it out in the open. So one day over the phone I decided to bring it up.
“You know what they say about me, right?” I asked him.
“Yes, but that is not who I see. I see the hardworking woman who fights for her kids.”
The first time he came to pick me up at my house for a date, my children were all skeptical of him. They were skeptical of any man who tried to date me. He took me to dinner, and as we sat down at the restaurant, I got a text from my youngest son, Johnny, saying, “Do you know that Esteban has a criminal record?”
“What are you talking about?” I texted back.
Johnny wrote, “I googled him and it says he was arrested for a DUI in 2006. Are you sure you want to date this guy?”
I knew this was Johnny’s way of telling me, “I’m looking out for you, Mom. I’ve got your back.”
I showed Esteban the text. “Yes, it’s true,” he said, and explained that he’d had a few drinks after a game and he got stopped on the freeway for speeding. He said the experience changed him and he realized how stupid it was. We talked more about our careers and our backgrounds. We both came from humble beginnings and were close to our families. It was your typical first date “getting to know you” conversation.
When I got home, Chiquis and Jacqie were waiting up to hear how it went.
“So?” Chiquis asked. “Tell me everything.”
“He was nice,” I replied. “It was nice.”
“But you’re not that into him?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
Jacqie, who is not one to hide her true feelings, said, “You know, Mom, he seems like a cock.”
While it is true that I didn’t fall head over heels for him right away, he was sweet, handsome, and easy to be around. Soon enough that combination won me over. I realized that everything about this love was different from the love I had with Fernando. It’s true, there wasn’t the same passion and fire. But there were also no raging fights, no phone calls at four in the morning, no dramas. I told my family, “Fernie was a passionate love. But this is a mature love.” And a mature love is what I needed at that point in my life. Esteban and I understood each other in a lot of ways. He had his own fame and understood the good, the bad, and the constant demands that come with it. I was still in touch with Fernando here and there, and I would get updates on him through his mother. Though I still cared for him, I knew that he would never be able to provide me the stability that Esteban could.
My family grew to love and appreciate Esteban for the way he treated me. He took care of my every need. He was always asking, “Are you hungry? Do you need anything? What can I do for you?” He was the man I had dreamed of—this was Runner Boy. He had his own money. He’d had a successful career. He took care of himself. And he treated me like a queen and my kids like princes and princesses.
In January of 2009 the news of our relationship went public. That same month I bought a home in Encino, California. I was tired of driving from Corona to LA all the time. I needed to be closer to where the action was, but I couldn’t bring myself to sell my home in Corona. It wasn’t smart financially, but I held on to it and continued to pay the bills though nobody was living in it. That was my first dream home. For me it represented so much. It represented that I was making good on my promises to my children, that I was proving Trino wrong, and that a poor little Mexican girl from Long Beach who once lived in a back garage could rise up and buy a seven-thousand-square-foot home.
This new home was even bigger at almost ten thousand square feet, with views of Los Angeles and the valley as far as the eye could see. I remember walking through that house the first night and asking myself, “How can it be that I once couldn’t pay the water bill on my little two-bedroom in Compton, and now I own a home with eleven bathrooms?” Not only that, I had finally found a man who treated me right, who wasn’t jealous or possessive, who had his own money and didn’t need anything from me but love and loyalty. And that’s all I needed back from him. Though we had only been together a few months, I had never felt so secure in my personal life.
And then, in May of that same year, Esteban and I broke up.
I caught him in a white lie and I ended it right then and there. For the few months that we had been together, he had done this mult
iple times, and it pissed me off. He would lie about the stupidest shit. I would always call him on it, but he continued to do it. I’d had enough of being lied to by men, and I wasn’t going to go through it again.
That same month my brother Juan was in the final rounds of a singing-contest show in Mexico called El Gran Desafío de Estrellas. He asked me to sing a song with him on one of the shows, and of course I said yes. I could never say no to Juan. The show taped every Sunday in Mexico City. That weekend I had shows in the cities of Hermosillo and Obregón and in Jalisco. After my last performance on Saturday night I flew to Mexico City to sing with my brother the following day. The show was broadcast on Azteca, the second-biggest network in Mexico. The biggest network, Televisa, sent me an e-mail saying that if I went on El Gran Desafío de Estrellas, they would ban me from their network.
When I told Juan, he said, “Don’t worry about it. It’s not worth it.”
I said, “You’re my brother and I don’t give a fuck.”
Less than fifteen minutes after we sang, I received an e-mail saying that I was officially banned from Televisa.
The next morning I went to the Mexico City airport to fly back to LA. I had the cash on me from the concert on Saturday night—a little over $50,000. When they searched my bag and found it, they asked me why I didn’t declare it.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know I had to,” I explained. “Let me do it now.”
“You can’t,” they told me before they arrested and detained me.
I had to pay an $8,000 fine and then they released me. By the time I made it to LA, the news was everywhere. The first network to cover it, of course, was Televisa, despite their having said they would never report any news on me ever again. By this point in my career I understood how the media played the game, and I wasn’t going to be a part of it as long as I could help it.