Unbreakable: My Story, My Way (13 page)

Johnny Angel López was born on February 11, 2001. The following day, February 12, Que Buena started playing “Querida Socia.” Many other stations followed its example, and in weeks I had a second hit on the radio. The original singer of the song, Diana Reyes, was getting major airplay on stations in Mexico. Her label was rumored to be bringing her on a promotional tour with her version of “Querida Socia.” Their plan was to take the territory that I had conquered with my version.

For that reason, Fonovisa contacted me and told me to get ready for my first promo tour with the label. I doubt that they cared much about the success of the song; it mattered more to them that a competing record label would even attempt to conquer their territory. Regardless, this was how the label started to promote me, and this was the song that brought me national and international attention.

11

Lupillo Rivera’s Sister

Pienso que es preferible sufrir a solas

Mi cruel tormento.

(
I think it’s better to suffer on my own

My cruel torment.
)

—from “Sufriendo a Solas”

_{In 2001 I went}
to Miami to promote my new album. I was still unknown in that market, so all of the announcers insisted on introducing me as “Jenni Rivera, Lupillo Rivera’s sister.” It started to get under my skin. I was proud of my brother, of course, but I was also determined that one day they would introduce me as just “Jenni Rivera.”

I was most excited to go on Don Francisco’s
Sábado Gigante
on Univision, one of my favorite shows. In June 2001, when I first sat down with him, Don Francisco showed a welcoming video of my parents, brothers, sister, and kids. When the part about my kids came on, I began to cry. I knew I was being seen all over the world and that my mascara was probably going to start dripping down my face, so I tried to hold it back. But I couldn’t hide my emotions. All my life I’ve
worked so hard to give my five babies everything I never had, and that was a wonderful moment of realization for me. I was making good on my promise. I was making my kids proud. One day they would be able to look back and say, “My mother gave everything she had to give us a better life.” There has never been anything more important to me than that.

I wiped away my tears as Don Francisco and I started the interview. One of the first questions he asked was “Who is older, Lupillo or you?” I had loved him before, but now I loved him so much more.

“I am two years older than Lupillo,” I told him. “I am thirty-two, but I look twenty-two.”

He started to laugh, and the audience laughed with him. We had chemistry right off the bat, and still do to this day. As an interviewer he makes you feel safe, and I talked to him about times in my life that I had never revealed to anyone else. I briefly told him about the rape that had occurred in 1997 (that was the only time I ever publically discussed what happened that night). I told him of how I used to work at the swap meets or collect scrap metal for change, and how I was now working as a secretary at my parents’ record label.

Before our interview was over, he asked me to stay and cohost the show with him for the following three hours. I was so honored and so grateful.
Sábado Gigante
is one of the most entertaining shows in the US Latin market and has been for many years. Getting the chance to sit with Don Francisco gave me the exposure I needed with Latinos from different cultures, not just my already-established Mexican following. Outside of Southern California I was a nobody. Don Francisco changed that. After that interview aired I got letters from Guatemalans, Salvadoreans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans. In the following years I became one of the most frequent guests on
Don Francisco Presenta,
where I was invited to perform, and that has always meant a lot to me. Don Francisco is a wonderful man, and
every time I’ve sat down with him I’ve had such a good time. When he spoke to me off air, he told me how much he respected my hard work and determination. He also told me that I was “Two R’s: Real and Ratings!”

Though I still had a long way to go on the national and international stage, I had become a local celebrity in the Hispanic parts of LA such as Long Beach, Huntington Park, and South Gate. Fans started to gather outside my home on Keene Avenue in Compton. They would show up in the middle of the night asking for pictures and autographs. Oftentimes they would be drunk, yelling my name, or knocking on the front door. Don’t get me wrong, I was flattered, and a part of me couldn’t believe people were actually that interested in me. But another part of me wanted peace and quiet, and I worried that it might not be safe for my children.

Though I had quit my job at the real estate office earlier that year, I still loved to search around Southern California for properties. I saw a listing for a gorgeous house in Corona, a city forty miles east of LA. I got in the car and drove to see it in person. When I got off the 91 freeway and drove the four miles leading up to the driveway, I passed horse and dairy farms. We weren’t in Compton anymore. As soon as I pulled up to the house, I fell in love with it. The seven-bedroom, six-bath, seven-thousand-square-foot ranch was set on an acre of wide-open land. And the price was just too good to pass up.

I moved into the house in July of 2001 with Juan and my five children. As we unpacked, I said to Chiquis, “Remember when we lived in the cold garage in Long Beach and I used to ride you on the back of my bike to day care at six in the morning? I used to promise you that one day I was going to get us a big house like this.”

“I remember,” she said. “And I knew you would do it too.”

It was an amazing moment for me, yet in the back of my mind I was wondering what I was doing with my husband, who was not
really bringing anything to the table. I knew Juan loved me and I knew I loved him, but that simply wasn’t enough. It didn’t guarantee happiness. We had been together for six years and I still can’t really pinpoint the reason why we weren’t able to get along. Was it that I had become too determined to make it as an artist? Did I become buried in reaching my goal? Did he resent that I was becoming more popular? Was he scared of losing me to the greatly demanding record industry and all that came along with it? Or was it that I never got over that he had cheated on me during the most difficult time in my life?

Deep inside, as much as I loved him, I have to admit that I did still resent him for having deceived me after I had done so much for him. I didn’t trust him anymore, and that caused serious marital problems between us. If I acted as if everything were okay, that was also a problem. He’d say that because I was now JENNI RIVERA, I thought I was better than him, which was ironic, since I was still trying to get the rest of the world to call me JENNI RIVERA.

One night Juan and I got into a big fight, and I called Rosie, Gladyz, and two more friends who were all going through heartbreak at the time. We went to a hole-in-the-wall bar where I knew they had a good Mexican band playing. As soon as we sat down, Rosie told us, “There is no crying tonight. The first person who cries has to put their underwear in the middle of the table.”

By the end of the night five pairs of thongs were in the center of the table, and we were all too drunk to drive home, so we called Lupillo to come pick us up.

When he got there, he said, “Why the fuck are your thongs on the table?”

“Pupi,” I said, “will you sing for us?”

“No, Jenni. I’m here to pick you up and go. Let’s go.”

“Please. I want to hear ‘Sufriendo a Solas.’ ”

Lupillo couldn’t say no to me. Especially when I was drunk and heartbroken.

He got up onstage and the crowd couldn’t believe it was him. As soon as he was finished singing the song, people shouted out requests and cheered for more as they handed him tequila shots. In true Rivera style he couldn’t say no to his fans. And in true Rivera style he “accidentally” got buzzed onstage. I joined him onstage and we sang a full free concert for the patrons of the dive bar, as my underwear sat on a table in the back.

In September I had a radio interview in New York. I was on another of my diets and got stupid drunk on three martinis. I was still going through a lot with Juan, and I was just pissed at the world. We were in a taxi riding uptown when I rolled down the window and screamed
Fuck you
s into the night. “Fuck you, Juan. And fuck you, Trino. Fuck you, streetlamps. Fuck you, New York. And fuck you, trash bags on the sidewalk!” This was just after 9/11, and the whole city was on edge and eerily quiet. And there I was, this crazy Mexican chick, screaming “Fuck you” to the world.

The taxi driver couldn’t get rid of Rosie and me fast enough once we got to our hotel. We were staying in this huge, fancy place that the radio station was paying for. It was ridiculously expensive, and I would never have picked it. If I had been paying, we’d have been staying at a Best Western or whatever was the cheapest hotel in New York. But instead we strolled our drunk asses into this fancy-ass lobby. This very proper Asian lady was walking down the sweeping staircase in a red coat that probably cost enough money to feed a small country. “Fuck you, lady in the red coat!” I screamed at her. She didn’t know what to do, and she definitely didn’t know who I was. She paused for a second, then turned and went running back up the stairs.

“Sister!” Rosie yelled at me. “What did she do to you?”

“I didn’t like her red coat. It was ugly. And you know what? Fuck your mother.”

“Well, fuck your father.”

“Fuck your brothers.”

Rosie took a deep breath and said, “Fuck your fucking fans.”

She knew that was crossing the line. “Now you’ve gone too far!” I yelled at her. “Leave my fans alone! I don’t want to play anymore.”

My family and friends all knew that they could talk mess and joke around about my mama, my daddy, my brothers. I could take it. But not my fans.

When I returned home from that trip, I walked into my new home and was greeted with my first big stack of fan mail. It was as if they had heard me defending them in the lobby of that ridiculous rich person’s hotel. That night I opened the envelopes one by one. People wrote such beautiful words of support and inspiration. They talked about how much they appreciated my music for giving women a strong voice, about how my lyrics helped them through difficult times. They said they had seen me on
Don Francisco Presenta
talking about such personal issues and it made them feel as if they were not alone. What these fans never knew is that they made me feel as if I were never alone either.

That year I hired an assistant to help me with the mail because I wanted to correspond directly with everyone who took the time to write to me. I also hired someone to travel with me and carry a Polaroid camera so when people came up to me, they could have a photo on the spot. I had these people on my staff before I even had a steady manager.

My fans were so special to me because they loved me even though they didn’t have to, and that always touched me so deeply. They were not related to me. They didn’t have to stand by me when I made mistakes
or took risks that everyone else thought I shouldn’t take. They didn’t have to have my back when I got in public feuds or if somebody talked mess about me. They didn’t have to believe and support me before I was anything.

Yet, from the very beginning, they did.

12

Busting Out

Se las voy a dar a otro,

porque tú no las mereces.

(
I’ll give my love to another

because you do not deserve it.
)

—from “Se las Voy a Dar a Otro”

_{People often ask about}
the moment I knew I had “made it.” I don’t know about other artists, but for me there was never a single day or event that I could point to and say, “That was it.” It wasn’t the first time I heard myself on the radio, or that stack of fan mail, or the first time I was recognized on the street. It was a series of events, a collection of small and big moments that built up to make me believe that maybe, just maybe, I had staying power.

In November of 2001 I went to Vicente Fernández’s concert at the Gibson Amphitheatre (which was then called the Universal Amphitheatre). My whole family looks up to Vicente Fernández, and every year we all went to at least one of his concerts. The first time I saw him perform was at the Million Dollar Theater in downtown LA during
the 1970s. I was about four or five years old, and my dad and I went to take Polaroids to sell to the crowd. At one point during the concert Vicente saw me and asked me to get onstage for a picture with him. I was so proud. Nobody is bigger in Mexican music than Vicente. I grew up listening to his music and idolizing him. He was huge back in the seventies, and more than two decades later he was still going strong and singing to sold-out Gibson crowds for three nights in a row.

As we walked to our seats that night in 2001, people started to cheer and go nuts. Naturally I thought it was for Vicente. It took me a minute to figure out that they were all looking at me, calling my name, and asking for a picture or autograph. Vicente saw the commotion, and once again he invited me onstage with him, but this time he wanted me to sing. I was so nervous, but kept telling myself to be cool and not to show it. I sang “Por un Amor” as he watched from the stage. I will never forget the words he spoke to the crowd when we were done with the song: “
Esta mujer no le pide nada a cualquier artista de aqui o alla,
” meaning that this woman does not lack anything that any female artist from here or there (the United States and Mexico) has. I was flying high that night and for many nights to come.