Unbreakable: My Story, My Way (14 page)

Less than a year later, in 2002, I was nominated for a Latin Grammy for Best Banda Album for
Se las Voy a Dar a Otro
(I’ll Give It to Another). When I got the news, my mind immediately flashed back to that desperate night at the Compton house when I was watching the 1998 Grammy show with my children, holding baby Jenicka in my arms, wondering if my husband was cheating on me, and hearing my Chiquis and Jacqie tell me that I could one day be nominated for a Grammy. Four years later my daughters’ words were coming true.

The show was on September 18, 2002. I was fighting with Juan, as usual, so I decided that I wanted my parents, my brothers, and my sister to come with me instead. We all met at my parents’ house. Everyone was running late, of course. This was our family’s first big awards show, and if there was one thing that was perfectly clear to me, it was that I never wanted to live through an amazing moment on my own. I always wanted my family to be around me to share in it. Even if it did take forever to get all eight Riveras out the door.

My four brothers drove me to the event in a convertible, and I sat on the top of the car as if I were in the hood and I was the queen of the parade, just as I had all those years ago for my quinceañera. We walked down the carpet together and then into the Kodak Theatre. It was all so surreal.

Mom, Rosie, and my brothers sat up in the balcony, and my dad sat next to me on the lower level with all the other nominees. When my name was announced, the cheering and applause did not stop. It gave me the chills. As the applause continued, I looked at my dad with tears in my eyes. He was crying too. It was as though all of the heartbreak, the hardships, the hard work, had led us to this one moment, in the middle of the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. I didn’t win—Banda Cuisillos did—but to me that didn’t matter. I was just happy to be there. I know everyone says that and it sounds like bullshit, but I swear it’s true. I felt as if I won by being the public’s favorite. They didn’t clap or cheer like that for anybody else. That one event gave me so much more confidence that my career was moving in the right direction.

Of course, I was still making mistakes and stumbling along the way. For example, that year I became friends with a female disc jockey named Rocío Sandoval, who went by the nickname La Peligrosa. We had a good time during and after my interview with her, and I felt that
I could trust her. I let her into my life and told her very private things. I thought that she respected me, that she respected our friendship, but that was clearly not the case. The next time I went on her radio show, she took a lot of cheap shots at me by asking questions directly related to secrets I had shared with her. I couldn’t believe she was going there. She also acted surprised that I had five children, as if she didn’t already know, and she made it sound as if it were something for me to be ashamed of. I have always been so proud to be a mother, and she knew that. She also knew that a lot of my fan base was made up of single mothers who related to me, so I didn’t think it was too smart on her part to have brought it up in such a negative way.

I could forgive all of this, but the day after the Que Buena Awards she took it too far. She bad-mouthed my mother and my family and that sent me over the edge. My mother is a kind, respectable lady, and La Peligrosa said my mother was expecting red-carpet treatment at events simply because she was “the mother of the Riveras.” To this day I do not know what pushed her to make those comments; I only know that she was way off base. My mother has never expected red-carpet treatment in her life. Anyone who has ever met her knows I’m not lying. Shortly after, Isis Sauceda, a reporter at the LA Spanish-language newspaper
La Opinión,
published an interview with La Peligrosa where she was quoted as saying, “The Riveras are very ungrateful people.” I don’t know who she was referring to, but it didn’t matter, I was officially offended and pissed.

A few weeks later that same reporter, Isis Sauceda, interviewed me and asked me about La Peligrosa’s comments. I responded that I had nothing to say and that I wasn’t angry at all, but I simply felt sorry for her and hoped that God would cure her of that horrible disease called jealousy. I said I hoped her bad feelings toward me would disappear and that her heart would heal.

The reaction to my comments was intense. The media wanted
to know more about who said what. I guess La Peligrosa thought I would keep quiet about her problems since she was a prominent disc jockey at the radio station that had opened the doors for me. But my dignity was on the line. My self-respect as a daughter, mother, sister, and woman would have been shattered if I had let her talk about me and my family without defending myself. It got out of hand, and one day one of the heads of Que Buena asked me to refrain from commenting on the situation anymore because it was hurting the image of his radio station. I like and respect this man very much, so I honored his request. I got together with La Peligrosa, and we both agreed not to take the matter any further.

In my career I’ve learned to respect the media because they can make or break you as an artist, but I refused to bow down to them if my pride or dignity was at stake. I refused to stop being myself, regardless of what it might cost me.

The drama with La Peligrosa also made me realize that if I was going to stick up for my dignity in my professional life, I had to do it in my personal life as well. So I decided to make a break with Juan once and for all.

No matter how much I tried to make it work with Juan, we couldn’t get it right. The problems began to take over my entire life, to the point where I found myself bringing my emotional problems onstage with me and into media interviews and not being able to give my best to my fans.

Nothing in my life felt complete. I wasn’t yet where I wanted to be in my music career, but I couldn’t focus on actually getting there because my relationship was growing more and more dramatic. I realized that if I stayed in my marriage, I would never make it as an artist. So I had to make a decision: either I had to stay in the troubled relationship that was continuously bringing problems to my career, and live with the consequences, or I had to let the relationship go and
focus on my career and on getting ahead in life. I didn’t know what to do.

In late June 2002, Juan made a mistake that helped me make that difficult decision. One night, after one of our famous fights, I walked into our bedroom while Juan was in the shower. I wanted to talk to him and hopefully resolve the quarrel we’d had earlier that evening. As I made my way toward the bathroom to surprise him, I was in for a surprise myself. I saw his cell phone sitting on the nightstand on the side of his bed. For some strange reason I picked it up and began running through his call log. I noticed that the last call he had made was less than thirty minutes earlier. It was to a 562 area code. The *67 that registered before the number jumped out at me. He had obviously called someone and didn’t want to have his number come up on the person’s caller ID.

Of course I pressed redial on his phone. And of course a woman answered.

I hung up and walked to the bathroom where he was sitting on the step by the Jacuzzi with a bath towel wrapped around his waist, nice and fresh after his shower. I immediately confronted him. “Who is this?” I demanded, pushing redial once again while setting his phone on speaker mode. I saw the same stupid look he’d had on his face when I’d confronted him the first time he cheated. He didn’t know what to say. I went crazy. I began throwing whatever I could find at him—drinking glasses, colognes (his, of course), vases, anything I could find to hurt him.

“I didn’t do anything!” he screamed. “I just called her. I just got the number!” He claimed it never went past a mere phone call, but it didn’t matter anymore. In my mind, the intention was there. He had crossed a line. My heart loved him, but my mind hated him for being so stupid and putting our marriage at risk once again. I told
him to stay at his mother’s house in Huntington Park. I needed some time alone.

He stayed at his mother’s one-bedroom home for a couple of weeks, but he was constantly begging me to let him come back. He would tell me how much he missed me and the kids, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he really just missed the new lifestyle he had become accustomed to in Corona. The doubt continually ran through my mind.

Eventually, I let him come back home, but from then on the roller coaster was on a serious downhill roll, making me sick to my stomach. He was going to give me a fucking ulcer.

After all that happened, I just couldn’t be the devoted and understanding wife I had vowed to be when we got married. Fights and heated discussions came and went, and every time I would be less and less fazed by them. Once he came home with a beautiful mink coat as a form of apology, which would have been a nice gesture if he’d used his own money to buy it. Whenever I wore that mink, I would walk around saying, “Don’t you love the fur coat that Juan bought me with my money?”

Oftentimes when we were on the road, we would have arguments before, after, or even during my performances. He didn’t care if I was going to go onstage; he would pick a fight with me right as I was walking up there, and I’d be all messed up. I wanted to give my best to my fans; after all, they had paid to see me and they didn’t care if I had problems or not. To give my best I had to be in the best emotional state, and he wasn’t allowing me to do that.

Sometimes he would stay in the hotels and watch TV while I went out and made the dough. On occasion our confrontations would occur in the presence of my band members and road managers. One night after I had a performance in Utah, we had a major
fight. The television in the room was thrown around and my performance clothes were dumped into the pool. Everyone found out. I felt horrible. I felt embarrassed. More and more people knew the type of life I was living.

I was so angry that I left him in that hotel room in Utah. He had nothing. No transportation, no wallet, no driver’s license, no money. Nothing. He pissed me off so badly that I didn’t care if and how he made it home to California. I had to keep moving. I wasn’t about to let the difficulties in my relationship stop me from attaining the success I was working toward. My talent was for sure. My relationship with Juan was not. I would not be held back.

On New Year’s Eve 2002 I was sitting with my brother Juan at my parents’ house. We were talking about what our resolutions would be for 2003.

“This year,” I told my brother, “I will leave my husband for good. I will be happily divorced by the time we bring in 2004.”

He looked and me and laughed. “You’re crazy, Chay. What kind of resolution is that? No wonder you guys can’t work it out.”

I thought otherwise. I had tried long enough to make it work. I had gone through hell and back with this guy. He had cheated on me when I most needed him. I had forgiven him and had another child. I’d worked diligently on my career to achieve a better financial situation for my kids and family. How was I going to get any further in my career if I constantly had to fight the fights? But it wasn’t just about my career. It was also about my kids. In my anger with Juan I would get physically violent. I broke the house phone over his head when I found out he had been having phone conversations with yet another woman. I didn’t want my children to live with the constant racket of domestic violence in yet another home. And I didn’t want the two young children I had with Juan to even know what it was to live that way. They
didn’t ask to be born. I brought them into the world and it was my responsibility that they lived happy, healthy lives. It was also up to me to give them a better life than the one we had lived before. I wanted the best for my children and I knew I wouldn’t be able to offer it to them if I didn’t free myself from the man who was holding me back.

A few weeks after I made my resolution, somebody told me that Juan was partying at a club while I was performing in Mexico. Nice, huh? March came along, and instead of celebrating his birthday, we opted not to even speak to each other.

April 4, 2003. I had no gigs lined up for the weekend, so Juan and I decided to go to the Banda el Recodo concert at the Gibson Amphitheatre. We had a good time with Renán Almendárez Coello (El Cucuy), members of his crew, and other staff of La Nueva 101.9. We sang and drank, and Juan and I spent some quality time together. It was the last time we would ever do so.

The following morning I planned to go shopping for something to wear to his friend Mike’s wedding that night. Since Mike was a high school friend of his, I wanted to make sure Juan approved of what I wore. It always mattered to me how his friends and family members saw me. Before I left the house, I answered some e-mails and comments on my website and my forum on
Univision.com
. He hated it when I did that. He said I spent way too much time responding to my fans’ questions. I disagreed and would do it anyway, in part to get to know my fans better and in part just to be rebellious.

When I left for the mall, he advised me to be back at 5:00 p.m., yet I didn’t get back until 5:30 p.m. I rushed into the house excitedly. Juan was in the bathroom and was pissed.

“I thought I told you I wanted to leave at five p.m.”

“I know, baby. I’m sorry. I couldn’t find anything I liked. I will be ready in a few minutes.”

“If you hadn’t been wasting your time on the Internet chatting with your fans, we’d be leaving already,” he snapped back.

“I said I would be ready fast, Juan. Don’t make me bring up shit that you’ve done. We both know you’re quite good at wasting time on doing things you shouldn’t do.”

I was beginning to get irritated. We went back and forth until he threatened to go to the wedding without me.

“I dare you,” I said. Five minutes later I watched him drive off as I looked out the bathroom window. I told myself I would give him thirty minutes to call or come back home, otherwise he would regret it. He called back thirty-five minutes later. I did not pick up. Five minutes too late was the final straw.

I got dressed and went out with my friend Erika, whose birthday had been the day before. We went to celebrate at the Mirage, a nightclub in Artesia. We had a blast. It felt amazing to be free for at least one night. No Juan. No problems. No arguments. Just Erika and me, the hip-hop music, and a few shots of tequila. I was determined to be happy with or without my husband.