Her Name Was Dolores Read online

  If Jen heard that a fan on his or her deathbed wanted to meet her, she didn’t go to a Make a Wish Foundation or any other organization to make a donation. She would carve out time and personally make her way to the hospital to see that person. And once there, it wasn’t a quick in-and-out visit or a media opportunity. She would sit by them, pray, talk, sing. She made sure she gave that person love and made sure they were well taken care of before she resumed her busy schedule and life. I can’t tell you the countless amounts of personal hospital visits and checks she wrote for fans in need, be it a cancer patient or a parent who had just lost a child. The key, what made her even more beloved by her fans, was that she didn’t just donate money. She also always made a point to donate her precious time.

  And it was no secret she had a soft spot for older people, single mothers, and children because she couldn’t imagine seeing her parents or kids suffering in any which way, and she knew firsthand what it meant to be a single parent in this world. As Julie, her assistant, once said to me, “The Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) was probably one of Jenni’s favorite places to visit. She felt at home there. She was given the freedom to go wherever she wanted, and she would pop into the children’s rooms and surprise them. The smile of every child she saw truly reflected on her face—the smile, the look in her eyes, the sense of fulfillment, the warmth in her heart—she always left CHLA renewed. No matter what she was going through, she found new appreciation for life in that hospital.” And it didn’t stop at hospitals.

  Back when she was on set filming Filly Brown, Jen overheard that the wife of the movie’s backstage photographer, John Castillo, an older Mexican-American man who was there donating his time for the project, was battling cancer. When she got wind of this, before leaving the set, she pulled him aside and said, “I want you to know that I’m donating my paycheck to you and your wife. Good luck with her fight against cancer.” Later, when John heard Jen passed away, he was one of the many people who reached out to me, saying he’d never forget that act of kindness. No one had ever done such a thing for him in his lifetime. Those were the things that made her unforgettable. These unpublicized private moments happened throughout her life, and she wasn’t bragging about all this; she simply did it from her heart. No one can even imagine the many fans Jen helped bury, in silence, with no media stunts or attention. She paid for their funerals, paid for their remains to be taken back to Mexico, and helped with whatever the families needed to give their loved one peace and find some sense of closure.

  I experienced this act of kindness firsthand. When my mom passed away from cancer, Jen not only dedicated an award she won at a show here in L.A. to my mother, she also contributed to my mother’s funeral service. I didn’t ask her for this, but she insisted, saying, “Let me help you.” That was her. She was always there. Now, hold up, you didn’t have to be sick to get Jen’s help. She helped many others too, visiting fans who were going through a rough patch and giving them cash as gifts to help them out. She also gave out wheelchairs, cars, participated in telethons, radio fundraisers, and any other giving venture that could benefit those in need.

  Another priceless moment etched in my mind as a perfect example of her understanding and generosity happened at one of her gigs in Mexico. Sometimes the venues she played had fairs set up outside with vendors selling different kinds of merchandise. This one time, we saw a local artist who was selling Jenni Rivera keychains and buttons; in other words, he was selling unauthorized Jenni Rivera merchandise using her image on products without permission. If another artist would’ve seen this, he or she would’ve flipped out and had the merchant’s post immediately shut down, but that sure as hell wasn’t Jen. She was compassionate because she understood him. She knew he was doing this to feed his family. She herself had done the same thing years ago as a teenager in Long Beach. So rather than report him or have him shut down his little business, she simply rolled down the window, poked her head out, and asked him how much the merchandise cost.

  When the man looked up, he turned pale and silent, as if he’d just seen God. I think he was preparing for her to let him have it, so he started handing over his product to her, but she quickly stopped him. “No, no, just tell me how much it costs, because I want to buy it all.” Baffled, he told her the price, and she replied, “Okay, I’m going to buy it, but I want you to go and give away each piece of merchandise to my fans, for free, on my behalf. And I’m sending my team over to make sure you do this.” The man had a look of disbelief on his face that was priceless, and he followed her orders to a tee. Jen just got it, she never forgot what that struggle felt like, she never forgot how hard it was to go through life with nothing but the shirt on your back, and that’s what made her unforgettable.

  Her generosity didn’t stop at hospitals and on the streets. Her donations and care reached her family and friends as well. She loved seeing people succeed, especially family and friends. She not only gave many of her loved ones money to help them out of a tough spot, she went even further. She’d pay for medical procedures too. It came to a point where we had a running joke in the team: you weren’t really loved by Jenni unless you went under the knife because of her. So, if she loved you and she found out you wanted a boob job, Jen would make arrangements and pay for it. She’d cover liposuctions, facelifts, you name it. She did it to me too. At one point, when I was at my heaviest, weighing close to four hundred pounds and suffering from diabetes, Jen looked me in the eye and said, “I’m not going to lose you. I need you around.” Without even asking, she followed that with, “So you’re going to go have a gastric sleeve done in Mexico.” Shocked, I simply said, “What?” to which she replied matter-of-factly, “Yeah, we leave tomorrow.” And that was that.

  Another person Jen helped was her grandmother from Sonora, Mexico. That señora was a real trip! She liked to drink beer, talk shit about men and sex, and dance. It was basically Jen at seventy-plus years. And Jen adored her NaNa—that was her mama in every sense. She was fantastic, delightful, always the life of the party, speaking her mind, and making Jen’s friends cry with laughter. Like the rest of the family, she’d also lived a hard life, so when Jen finally made it big, she set up an account for her abuela in Mexico and religiously deposited money into it every single month. Jen wanted to make sure that her NaNa spent the rest of her days on earth taken care of and pampered, always having access to whatever she needed. That’s why it was so heartbreaking to see how, when Jen passed away, with no regard to what she would’ve wanted, the family went and cut that account. A year later, their NaNa passed away, destitute, in a county facility in Sonora. The situation was so bad that it was even a struggle to have her buried. Lupillo had to address the family in order to give her the burial she deserved. Definitely not the end Jen would’ve wanted for her dear abuela; had she been alive, she would’ve been devastated to see such an outcome … had she been alive, it wouldn’t have happened.

  As Jen became more powerful with her fans, many local and national politicians took notice and started turning to her for support. Jen had her finger on the pulse of the Latino community, she was approachable, she was always in touch with her people, and she was considered an important community leader. Before we knew it, Jen was lending herself to help some politicians who in turn would help her people, and even managed to get some officials elected, but she wasn’t really receiving anything in return.

  As I observed this, I reached out to her one day and suggested we hire a political consultant. “Listen, we saw this play out in the black community with Magic Johnson and a local L.A. politician with urban redevelopment,” I said to Jen. I had worked with Magic Johnson prior to working with her. “Why don’t we emulate the same structure in the Latino community?” I suggested. I kept thinking, Why couldn’t we get an Oscar de la Hoya or a Jenni Rivera to help develop our communities too? Why couldn’t we have a woman’s shelter funded by the local government and have Jen participate in this giving venture? It was a perfect fit, something she wa
s passionate about, and something that made her happy. She loved being able to give back to her community, so it was time to take a more serious step to make it happen. That’s when we scheduled a meeting with political consultant James Acevedo, the Godfather of Latino Politics in Southern California.

  We met for breakfast at Jen’s house, discussed the projects we wanted to get off the ground, and James became our point person, working closely with other community leaders and politicians to make some noticeable progress. Jen was wrapping up her album Mi vida loca, and was really excited about using her rising celebrity star for good causes. So we began to pursue these plans aggressively, studying what Emilio Estefan had done in Miami, and figuring out what we could apply to what we were trying to do in California. The idea wasn’t to turn Jen into a real estate tycoon. It was more about learning how to use her fame wisely to bring new opportunities to the community.

  Jen wanted to create real business opportunities for people within fields that they could excel in. It was all about keeping it real and accessible. Most Latinas have some specialty—like sewing or cooking, for example—so our idea was to take these basic skills into account and teach them how to use them in their favor to build a business. Jen loved this idea because she knew that giving them a business skill, something with which they could make their own money, would also in turn give them the financial freedom needed to leave abusive relationships, fend for themselves and their children, and make something of themselves. She knew all too well how important it was to have this independence. Many women who solely depend on their husbands or boyfriends don’t leave their abusive partners because they simply don’t have the means to do so. Not only that, many women don’t even know where to begin to find those means, they don’t know where to start or how to make it happen, so they end up stuck in these life-threatening situations with nowhere to turn.

  Jen knew from personal experience that regardless of whether you are in a good or abusive relationship, every woman should have her own side money to contribute to the household and to have a way out if it ever comes to that. So why not create a place that offers this possibility to these women in need? That’s where Jen’s head was at. She wanted to use her pull as a celebrity and combine it with local politicians and their resources to make it happen. It was a sound plan, the people we reached out to were on board, and it was all in the works.

  We were planning redevelopment projects, looking into affordable housing and how to bring these ideas to the Latino community, but then 2008 came around, the housing market crashed, and everything was stalled due to the severe financial crisis. Everyone around Jen was affected by the housing market crash, even her brother. It really hit home, so the redevelopment plans were put on hold; the focus now shifted on everyone who had been affected by this crisis.

  In 2009, Jen moved to Encino and got involved with New Economics for Women (NEW). Her plan was to turn her old seven-bedroom Corona home into a woman’s shelter. However, she got quite a bit of pushback from her neighbors. When Jen lived there, the neighbors assumed that her expensive cars and tour buses and genre of music were all tied to cartels. They assumed she was some type of female drug lord, so when she moved away, they were happy, and she knew getting their vote to turn her old home into a women’s shelter would be nearly impossible, so she decided to look for other opportunities to make this happen.

  Meanwhile, never one to sit still, when 2010 came along, during some downtime between tours where we were all on vacation, Jen suddenly said, “Guys, we’re extending our vacation this year so we can all go down to Arizona.” She wanted us to join the community in Phoenix, Arizona, and march against the SB 1070 Law, a legislative act that was being voted on, which, if passed, would be one of the strictest and broadest anti-immigration laws in many years. So we loaded up the tour bus, took our families along for the ride, and drove down to Arizona to protest with our fellow Latinos. It was a three-mile march under the Arizona sun, but that didn’t stop Jen from walking side-by-side everyone else in Phoenix. She didn’t skip the march and meet us at the finish line, no way. She was right there, we all were, marching together with our families and the Arizona communities, joining forces and supporting one another during this critical time. It was exhilarating. And guess what? There were no cameras following her while we marched, and she wasn’t doing it as a publicity stunt. It was a genuine act of solidarity, concern, and support. That was Jen.

  As our work with James Acevedo continued to progress, aside from using her support in the community wisely, we were working on organizing her generosity to make the most of her giving nature. Up until then, Jen made donations to shelters and hospitals and individuals straight out of her own pocket. She didn’t have any corporate sponsors or anyone else backing her charity. If someone needed a car, Jen would go and buy it with her own checkbook. She was all about taking action, and that was solid gold, but I explained to her that as a celebrity, she could actually have a car manufacturer donate a car in her name without having to dive into her own earnings. There were better ways to structure her need to give and help others. She was okay with that idea, but made one thing crystal clear from the get-go: if she was going to give something to a person in need or an organization, it had to come from her, not someone else or another company. And that’s how the idea of the Jenni Rivera Love Foundation came to be. We discussed everything we could accomplish through her own foundation, and she was all in. “Set it up,” she said, and we went to work.

  Jen’s goal for her foundation was to offer scholarships to young women who worked hard and hoped to continue their educations. And I’m not talking just college or university scholarships. I’m talking trade schools too. Jen wanted to help women and families in need succeed, and in some cases it came down to simply learning a trade to help them get off of welfare. She wanted to provide that leg up life hadn’t afforded them; she hoped to make a real difference in their life. And she wasn’t about to take any type of salary to do this. This was pure charity, giving, what made Jen happy, what made her whole. Nowadays, many nonprofits are structured to pay their founders salaries, and some use it as another form of income, but that sure as hell was not Jen. She was adamant about having her nonprofit organization be exactly that: not for profit. One hundred percent of the proceeds were destined to help women and families in need. She wanted it all to go back to the community, her people.

  As with many of her other ventures, it took us around two years to make it happen, but it was finally up and running prior to her accident. Since then, it’s had its fair share of struggles, including a recent suspension, but it has now been reinstated and seems like it might survive. I hope it does. This is a huge part of Jen’s legacy, and I know it would’ve made her ecstatic to see it thrive.

  The same year we began planning the Jenni Rivera Love Foundation, Jen was also named spokeswoman for the National Coalition Against Battered Women and Domestic Violence in Los Angeles. It was in honor of her ongoing fight for women’s rights, the protection of children subject to abuse, and her constant dedication to protecting battered women everywhere. On that same day in 2010, the LA City Council officially named August 6 Jenni Rivera Day to commemorate her work and involvement in the community.

  That was the epitome of the Jen that I knew. Sure, she was a crazy cabrona sometimes, tough as nails when she had to be. If I had hair, I would’ve lost it all working by her side with all the ups and downs we journeyed through together, but she was also always incredibly gracious and kind. And at the end of the day, all she really wanted was to give her family, friends, and community the love and loyalty she so yearned to have in her own personal life.

  Chapter 10

  Happily Ever After? Love, Loss, and Betrayals

  After her relationship with Fernando officially ended in 2007, Jen had lovers and booty calls, but it seemed no one would be able to fill that void until she met Esteban … or so she thought. Fernando was her muse, her soul mate, her everything, but their relationship was tumu
ltuous, and his addiction prevented them from having their “happily ever after.” She wasn’t sure if she could ever really love again, until she fell for Esteban, a man whom she believed would finally be able to provide her with the stability she and her kids needed.

  Jen met Esteban Loaiza at one of her palenque concerts in Mazatlán, Mexico, on December 7, 2008. Gabo was actually the one who introduced them that night, not knowing he was introducing Jen to her future husband. Esteban was a successful baseball player who had recently played for the LA Dodgers, a true sports hero in Mexico. She was la Gran Señora, la Diva de la Banda, the one and only Jenni Rivera. It seemed like a match made in heaven.

  Initially, aside from finding him physically attractive, what drew Jen to Esteban was that he appeared to be a successful man, someone who had made it, a guy who had his shit together and wouldn’t need Jen to come to the rescue, someone who could finally take care of her for a change. He began courting her with lavish gifts and grand gestures, and she allowed herself to be wooed. This was a first for Jen. She’d never been treated like a queen before. Esteban came into Jen’s life with his fancy jewelry, cool cars, and expensive clothes and did all in his power to sweep her off her feet. He’d buy her five pairs of jeans, a pair of shoes a week; he enjoyed the finer things in life and opened her up to this possibility, something new and exciting to Jen. She’d never been pampered by a man like this before; she was used to being the provider for everyone, so, although it was somewhat overwhelming for her, it was also a definite breath of fresh air.