by Jenni Rivera
I sat down with Mikey and asked him what had happened. I couldn’t believe that he would mistreat a female. He had grown up surrounded by women, and I never once saw him be anything but kind and tender. Mikey told me he had slept with this girl, but it had been consensual. It was decided to defend the allegations in court.
Before the case began, Rosie presented me the Victory Ring that I had given her during the trial with Trino. “This is for you,” she said. “Justice will be done again.” The case came to a close in March of 2011 when Mikey was given three years’ probation and a $600 fine.
Just when the saga with Mikey ended, a new one began with my longtime manager Gabo. I had a concert in Mexico where we were paid in cash. One of Gabo’s assistants borrowed a leather bag from the head security guard so he wouldn’t be carrying around the funds in his hands. When the assistant returned the bag to the security guard at the end of the night, the original contract was in the bag.
I looked at the contract and didn’t recognize any of the numbers. The tickets sold were more than I had been told; the amount I was paid was double what Gabo told me I was getting paid. For years, family and friends had been telling me that Gabo was not trustworthy, and now here it was in black and white on a legal document. It appeared as if he was taking half of my proceeds from the concert in addition to his management fee. We looked into the contracts, and it seemed that at every appearance where I was making $200,000, I would receive only $100,000. We estimated that the total amount owed to me was between $1 million and $2.5 million.
Gabo knew more than anyone else how hard I worked. He knew how tiring and demanding it was to constantly be on the go, yet I always showed up and gave 100 percent. He knew how painful it was for me to be away from my kids. He also knew that everything I did, I did for them. I worked so hard to provide them with everything I never had. In my mind, Gabo did not hurt me. He did something for worse. The son of a bitch hurt my children.
The following week Gabo and I were in Acapulco chilling by the pool and eating lunch. At a quiet, calm moment I presented the issue.
“I know what you did,” I told Gabo. “There have been discrepancies in the payments and you owe me money.”
He denied it, and that made me even angrier. Here’s the thing: If I catch people doing something and they admit to it, I can forgive them right away. If they deny it, game on. Gabo and I had been together for over ten years. After all that time, you’d think he’d know who he was fucking with.
I left him in Acapulco and did not care how he made his way home.
I cried for Gabo as if it were a breakup. It wasn’t about the money. People had lied to me before, but they were never people I considered family. And that’s how I felt about Gabo. He was a brother who had betrayed me for so long when I was so loyal to him in return.
On May 20, 2011, I performed at La Feria de Guanajuato, in Guanajuato, Mexico. During the show a fan threw a full beer can onstage that skimmed my head and landed in the center of the palenque. My brother Juan was standing on the sidelines and went nuts. When it comes to his family, Juan loses all sense of control. He went after the guy and beat him up pretty bad. Two weeks later a video surfaced, and the media frenzy began. Juan received a thousand death threats. Two weeks before this incident a female fan threw a beer can at me and I brought her onstage and poured a beer over her head. I got crucified for that as well. I am not saying that I was right, but when you have a full beer can flying at you onstage, you kind of lose your head.
People said the Riveras were killers and that we would go to Mexico to fill our pockets with money and humiliate the fans. I was scared. I thought I was going to lose my fan base. We held a press conference on June 7 and I apologized to my fans and reassured them about how important they were to me. I admitted my mistakes and took all the heat. I knew Juan had made a mistake, but he was my baby brother, my Angel Face, and I was going to stand by him.
The following week, on June 16 and 17, I had two back-to-back concerts at the prestigious Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City. I was afraid that nobody would show up. Once again, despite all of my imperfections, all of my flaws, the fans were there for me. Both nights were sold out. My fans held me up when I was so down on myself. They supported me when I was judging myself so harshly. They gave me love that I did not deserve.
On July 29, 2011, I had a concert date in Reynosa, Mexico, a town notorious for its drug cartels. A few days before I was set to perform, I got a phone call from the FBI telling me not to go sing.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because we got an informant inside a cartel, and they are planning to kidnap you.”
I thought it was bullshit. Anybody could call me from the FBI and tell me that. The FBI agent gave me a number and I called it. An FBI agent in San Diego answered. Oh, shit, I thought. This is real. I called my brother Juan to see if he could get some of his buddies in Mexico to protect me.
He called me back a half hour later: “I spoke to the main guy there. Nothing is going to happen.”
We were all still nervous. My band was already in Mexico waiting for me to arrive. The band told the promoters that they weren’t going to do the concert, so in retaliation the promoters held two of my employees hostage, demanding that I perform.
That night a hurricane came through Texas and hit the town in Mexico where I was going to land. It was the perfect excuse to bail out, but then at 7:00 p.m. the airport reopened. Juan drove to my house and begged me not to go.
“I have to,” I said. “If I don’t go, they will come after me or you or Lupe in the future. We can’t show fear.”
Months earlier, when there had been another scare during one of my concerts in Mexico, the fans had started to leave. So I said to them, “I get paid to sing, not run. Stay here with me.” I felt the same way now. I was not going to run. I was not going to be intimidated.
“If you go, then I’m going with you,” Juan said.
“No. You stay here.”
“No, Chay, I’m going.”
“I’m not asking you, Juan. I’m telling you. If something happens to me, you’re the only one who can take care of things. I’m going to take Esteban. You know where the money is. And, Brother, if anything happens to me, I want a red casket with butterflies.”
I flew from Van Nuys to McAllen with my team, among them my assistant Julie, my makeup artist Jacob, and my second assistant Vaquero. We played music the entire flight, specific songs that I had chosen. We were pressed for time, so I had to get ready on the plane. Jacob got to work on my makeup and Julie started on my hair. We listened to “Cuando Muere Una Dama” over and over again. As we walked off the plane Jacob, Julie, and I cried. Vaquero just stared in shock. I told Jacob and Vaquero they could stay at hotel and wait until we got back. I didn’t even give Julie that option. I knew she wouldn’t leave me.
We got in a car that was surrounded by the fourteen Hummers and they drove us from the border to the venue. I had never felt such heat or tension. When we arrived, the building was surrounded by even more Hummers, but there were also military tanks and soldiers at every door and undercover among the crowd. We had the protection of the government, the military, and the cops, both good and bad.
I put it out of my mind as I sang for hours and drank the tequila shots my fans offered me, just as I did at every one of my performances. That day I may have had even more tequila than usual. After I stepped offstage, I was escorted right back to the Hummers, where the marines were waiting. We headed back to the border the same way we had come, surrounded by a caravan of marines and nervous as fuck. Once we crossed back over into Texas, we all could finally breath normally again. But I felt as if I had to get out of this life. I couldn’t live this way any longer. Of course I didn’t know how to pull myself out of it.
On July 26, 2011, I was presented with a star at the Poly Walk of Fame Ceremony at Long Beach Poly. Since I started recording music in 1993 I have been given many awards. I have appreciated every one, but to receive thi
s recognition from the place where it all began was incredibly special. I have always been so proud to be from Long Beach and that I attended “the home of scholars and champions,” even though I attended for only a few months because I got pregnant. When I left Poly at fifteen years old I was so upset. To be asked back twenty-seven years later and recognized for my achievements was the ultimate honor.
On September 3, 2011, I made it to the Staples Center, the end goal in the LA music scene. The place where I said that once I got there, I would retire. I was the first female regional Mexican artist to ever perform there. The funny thing was, I had worked so hard to get to that stage and dreamed of how great it would be, and then it really wasn’t. It was too big. It didn’t have the intimacy of the Gibson or the Kodak. I felt the same when I played at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City. Though I could make a lot more money playing at venues such as the Staples Center or the Auditorio Nacional, I preferred to play at smaller theaters and palenques. The following year I did two back-to-back gigs at the Gibson instead of the large concert at the Staples.
In October of 2011 I launched a radio show called Contacto Directo con Jenni Rivera. I was tired of being a media pawn and hearing all the lies and rumors about me. I saw the show as an opportunity for me to make statements or announcements directly to my fans, but also to have conversations with them. To talk about real issues with them and offer them help or advice from my experiences.
I asked Rosie to be on it with me, but she was skeptical at first because she thought she was boring and would have nothing to talk about, but I eventually talked her into it. All we had to do was be ourselves. The way we talked to each other was how we talked on the radio. We did it live from a studio for four hours every Wednesday. The executives told me not to talk about two things: politics and religion. So I talked freely about both. These topics affect my people, and I wasn’t going to be influenced or scared. I kept it real for my fans, and they thanked me by tuning in week after week.
We started in thirteen markets. Within a few months we were in forty markets, and by the end of the year in fifty-seven. I was convinced now more than ever that I wanted to have my own talk show.
Though I told myself I would slow down in 2012, I was busier than ever. Not only did I have concerts every weekend, I had the reality show, the radio show, a boutique I was planning, and a taco truck I was launching. I was also taking acting lessons, and I was a judge for La Voz . . . México. Esteban came with me wherever I went. While a part of me liked having a companion by my side and I appreciated that he took care of me, I also felt suffocated at times. I would tell him I needed my space, and he would get bored and go shopping for me. He would come home with his car full of bags, and everyone in the family would go out to help him cart the bags inside. I realized that maybe he had a problem, but if it made him happy and kept him out of my hair, what the fuck did I care what he did with his money?
By the time the summer came around, I had a thousand things going on at once, but at the forefront of my mind was that Mikey’s girlfriend, Drea, was about to have a baby, my second grandchild. On August 26, 2012, I flew down to Mexico for a few days to tape La Voz. I told Drea, “Don’t have this baby until I get back.” But the baby had other plans. As I was sitting in my judge chair on August 28, I kept checking my phone for news. During a break a text came through: a photo of my second gorgeous granddaughter, Luna Amira. I was upset that I was not there to welcome her into the world, but so excited to get home to meet another princess I could spoil and teach the big-booty song.
23
* * *
Butterfly of the Hood
Ya me canso de llorar y no amanece
Ya no sé si maldecirte o por tí rezar.
(I’m tired of crying with no hope
I don’t know whether to curse you or pray for you.)
—from “Paloma Negra”
In 2011 I got a call from the Hispanic Godfather of Hollywood, Edward James Olmos. “I need a big favor from you,” he said. “I need you to work with me on a film. I’ll send you the script and you tell me if you like it.”
He explained that he wanted me to play the role of Maria, a drug-addicted mother who is in prison. The movie is called Filly Brown, and it tells the story of a Latina rapper who struggles to make it in the game. I didn’t need to read the script to say yes. The fact that Edward James Olmos saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself was enough of a reason for me to sign on.
As with everything I do, I wasn’t going to half-ass it. I was going to do it to the best of my ability. I trained with an acting coach and I rehearsed with my costars for the entire month leading up to the filming. I was surrounded by such amazing and generous talent. I loved being on that set. There was a special atmosphere and camaraderie among the actors and crew, who, by the way, were being paid so little for this tiny independent film. I was getting a thousand dollars.
During breaks on set I talked to the crew and cameramen. There was one still photographer who I talked to for a while and I found out that he was not being paid at all. He needed the money way more than I did, so I asked the production to give my check to him.
I wasn’t in it for the money—I said from the beginning I would do it for free, and I was true to my word. I wasn’t in it for the glamour—my character was stripped down, no makeup, and drugged out half the time. I was in it because Edward James Olmos had asked me, because I loved the story, and because I wanted to prove to myself that I could. Most of all I wanted my kids to be proud of me. I wanted them to be able to look on the big screen one day and say, “That’s my mom. Isn’t she cool?”
I never even considered acting before, but I never seriously considered singing when I started out and look where that got me. A few months after the movie was finished, the acting world came calling once more.
In September of 2012 my manager had set up meetings with huge entertainment executives at Fox, CBS, NBC, and ABC. They were interested in doing a sitcom loosely based on my life and starring me. I couldn’t believe that any of these execs even wanted to meet with me. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but I thought this might be my way out of performing and traveling so much. I would finally be able to stay home with the kids on the weekends.
I felt that something was shifting in my life for the better. Not only did I have the meetings set up with the TV execs, but there were also talks of my getting a residency, a regular gig for a certain amount of time under contract, in Vegas. I figured that I could do the sitcom, the residency, and then maybe travel once or twice a month for concerts in Mexico. It would allow me more time to be home with my kids, which is all I wanted.
Jacqie got married on September 19, 2012, one of the happiest days of my life. I got to walk her down the aisle, and I remember feeling truly at peace. I had my five incredible children around me, my two beautiful granddaughters, and a supportive man beside me. I thought I couldn’t ask for anything more.
On September 21, that all went to shit. Esteban told a lie about someone he had called, and when I confronted him about it, he denied it. Two days later I brought it up again. “Just tell me the truth,” I told him “I already know it, so just admit it.” But he still denied it. I was so pissed and I told him to get out of the house for a few days so I could cool off. He packed a bag and headed to his mother’s in San Diego. I told him I would call him when I was ready to talk. As I watched him walk away, I felt something in my gut. Something was not right.
The following day I discovered evidence of even more lies and deception. I was done. I had warned him so many times that I could not stand liars and I would not put up with lying. I do not go back on my word.
Esteban kept calling and texting to come back home. “I need more time,” I told him. “Give me a few more days.”
On October 1 I found myself sitting in Manley Freid’s office once again. Rosie came with me.
“You are making me a lot of money, young lady. I can live just off of you,” he told me. “The n
ext time you think of dating someone, bring him to me. Not your mom, not your dad, me. I can see you are amazing at everything you do except choosing men.” Then he asked Rosie, “Isn’t she bad at choosing men? Tell her the truth.”
Rosie turned to me and said, “We are bad at choosing men.”
Manley said, “I wasn’t asking about you. Tell her she is bad at it.”
Of course Rosie didn’t have it in her to be that harsh.
I got sad when we started to divide whatever wasn’t protected. The good news is that a lot of it was protected, thanks to the amazing prenup.
“Manley,” I said, “would I get in trouble if I took all of his clothes and burned them in my backyard? What if I get one of those big trash bins and put them in there and then burn them?”
“No, don’t do it. His attorney will make you compensate him for every piece of clothing.”
“Ah, fuck,” I said. “Well, it was a beautiful wedding, wasn’t it?”
“It was a beautiful wedding,” Rosie assured me.
“A beautiful mistake. I should never have married a man I didn’t love passionately. One day I’ll put the dress up in a museum with a plaque that says WORN ONCE, BY MISTAKE.”
This would be my third divorce. I wanted to deliver the papers myself, but obviously I knew that a third party had to do it. I made a plan with Pete Salgado, my business manager, for him to deliver the papers, but not before I had a chance to say my last piece to Esteban.
I told Esteban that I would meet him at his mother’s house in San Diego because I had our wedding album for her. It had finally been delivered, and I wanted to give it to his mom myself. When I got to her house, Esteban wasn’t there yet. I sat with his mother, going through the pictures and talking about what a beautiful day it had been. Soon Esteban walked in and I greeted him by saying, “Hey, is there anything you want to tell me?”