Unbreakable: My Story, My Way (18 page)

Once again, they asked me about my comment about Mariana on El Piolín’s show. I defended my statement once more, but this time Mariana came back on and said I also had
palancas
because I had my brother Lupillo. I responded that I was the one sitting down giving the interview, not my brother. I told her that I recorded, I managed my own image, and I gave my own interviews. Nobody had ever played my music just because I was Lupillo’s sister. What I couldn’t see, because I didn’t have a monitor, was that while I was talking, Mariana was mocking me on-screen. I only had a camera in front of me. But the damage was done because my fans saw what she did. Then, all of a sudden, my image on the monitor scrambled and went to a blur. I was told that we had lost the satellite connection.

My fans went crazy. They all thought it was intentional, and so did I. Chiquis was the most upset of all. “Why would they do that to you, Mom?” she kept asking. Everywhere I went the reporters wanted to hear my reaction about being “taken off the air” on
El Gordo y la Flaca
. Obviously I wasn’t going to let the whole thing die without getting the last word.

A month later I went to Miami to promote my record live on
El Gordo y la Flaca
. This time El Gordo de Molina was there. They apologized left and right about what had happened with the satellite the last time. I told them I would like to dedicate a song to whoever had anything to do with cutting me off the air. I sang the verse:
Este verso es pa’ tu, abuela, y los que llevan tu sangre. Agarrados de la mano,
chingen todos a su madre
(This verse is for you, your grandma, and your bloodline. Hold each other’s hands, and go fuck your mother). Then I stood up, took off my microphone, placed it on the table, and walked off the set.

“Did you really just do that? Did I just see what I think I saw?” I could barely hear a word Jazmin, the talent representative from my label, was saying. I had just cursed
El Gordo y la Flaca
off, live, on the air. Nobody had ever done that. Ever. I told Jazmin, “Ah, well, I’m sure I’ll never be asked back on.”

Had I gone too far? Did they deserve it? Was that a big career mistake? The truth is, I didn’t care. No self-respecting chick from the West Side of Long Beach would care about any of that. Because no self-respecting chick from the West Side of Long Beach would ever worry about what was right, what was wise, and what was responsible when it came to defending her honor.

This event made me “the infamous Jenni Rivera.” The media talked about it every chance they could. Some people wanted me to retract my statement and apologize, but there was no way I was going to do that. I didn’t feel any remorse for what I had done, so I was not going to be a phony or a hypocrite. My fan base, instead of abandoning me, only grew stronger and more supportive.

The night of my concert at the Kodak, October 14, 2005, I found out that it was sold out. As I pulled up to the theater, Hollywood Boulevard was swamped. As I looked at the lines of people wearing Jenni Rivera T-shirts, I got choked up.

“Can you believe it?” I said to nobody in particular. “The nerd from the LBC sold out the motherfucking Kodak.” Not only did I sell out the motherfucking Kodak, that night the theater had the highest alcohol sales ever reported. To me that was the greatest achievement of all. Ticket sales are important, of course, but to promoters, the alcohol sales are just as important, if not more. That is how they make the
bulk of their money, and so the artists who have high alcohol sales are the most beneficial to sign. And in that respect, my fans never disappointed.

To this day I still say my concert at the Kodak was my most memorable. It was the first time I sang in a theater that big and that prestigious. Soon after, I got a contract to sing at the Gibson, which had been my goal for so long.

“Okay,” I kept saying. “I’ll do the Gibson and then the Staples and then I’ll retire. Two more years.”

But then “the impossible” happened. In the spring of 2006 I got my first big gig in Mexico, at a
palenque
in Guadalajara. (In Mexico, a
palenque
is a place where both cockfights and concerts are held, and in my opinion, it is also the best place to perform.) “De Contrabando,” one of the songs on my new album, had hit it big in Mexico, and all of a sudden I was known throughout the entire country. Many people told me that a singer who was not born on Mexican soil could never break into that market. People in the industry told me it was impossible, so you can imagine how excited I was to be proving them wrong once again. Though I will admit I was also a little nervous, since times were rough in Mexico, and several regional Mexican artists had recently been kidnapped or killed.

I asked my brother Juan if he had any friends who could protect us. Juan always knows the people you need to know. When we arrived at the airport in Mexico, we were greeted by several armored cars driven by government officials, and they brought us to the
palenque.

My band and I were set up in the small circle in the middle of the
palenque
, and thousands of fans surrounded us. The closest fans were less than ten feet from me, and they were handing me tequila shots throughout the night as they sang along to my songs. The energy was so high and so contained, and when I finished that concert, I was buzzing on alcohol and adrenaline.

Outside, the caravan of armored cars was waiting for us. As we drove away, we opened the moon roof in the car. I asked one of the government officials to let me see his gun. For some reason he did, and without hesitating, I stood up and shot the gun in the night air. Between shots I heard the government official say to my brother, “What the fuck is she doing? I could be arrested.”

Juan asked the obvious question: “Well, why the fuck did you give her the gun?”

The next night I was scheduled to sing at another
palenque
in Uruapán, 160 miles southeast of Guadalajara. That morning we heard rumors that something was going to happen to me.

Juan said, “Let’s just cancel the gig.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Is it worth it?”

“It’s not about the money. People are coming to see me. I can’t let them down. Will you go with me?”

“Well, shit, I don’t have a choice.”

We drove from Guadalajara to Uruapán with thirty cop cars surrounding us. I was sitting in the middle between Juan and Hector, Chiquis’s fiancé, who served as one of my protectors. As we approached the crowded venue, Juan said, “Hector, if any shots get fired, we fall on my sister.”

“All right,” he said. “I got you.”

We pulled up to the doors and all I saw were machine guns everywhere.

Juan hugged me. “I don’t know if anything is going to happen tonight. But if we are going, we are going to ride together, all right?”

“All right, Brother. Just don’t bitch out.”

Nothing happened that night at the
palenque
, but we were still on edge when we got to our hotel. Hector and Juan told me they were going to sleep outside my door. I went to bed, and they decided that
they were going to get drunk so if anything happened, they wouldn’t feel it. I woke up the next morning and they were hammered.

“Oh, this is great. I got two dumbass drunk security guards taking care of me.”

“Did anything happen?” Juan asked.

“No.”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

16

Speaking Out

Levanto mis manos aunque no tengo fuerzas.

(
I lift up my hands to you

even when my strength is failing.
)

—from “Levanto Mis Manos”

_{In January of 2006}
Rosie saw Trino for the first time in nine years. She was sitting at Norms restaurant in Lakewood with Gladyz when she spotted him a few tables away. She froze. She couldn’t speak, and Gladyz kept asking her what was wrong. Then Trino looked over and locked eyes with Rosie. He froze too. But then in an instant he stood up, put money on the table, and left, passing right by their table as he headed for the door. Rosie didn’t take a breath until he was outside.

By that time Gladyz was screaming at her, “Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“It was Trino,” she finally managed to say. “Go get his plates.” Gladyz ran out into the parking lot, and that’s when Rosie went to the pay phone to call me.

The first words out of her mouth were “Sister, I’m sorry. I am so stupid. I failed you.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “What happened?”

“I just saw Trino and I didn’t do anything.”

“Where are you?”

“At the Norms two miles from Mom’s house.”

“Was he with anyone?”

“Yes, he was with a woman.”

“Dora?”

“No. Someone else.”

“That bastard. I’m sure he’s cheating on her. Did he look the same?”

“It looked like he had some plastic surgeries to his face. But it was him. I knew by his eyes.”

Gladyz came back in and told Rosie she couldn’t get his plates. He sped away too fast.

Rosie started to cry. “I didn’t do anything. All of these years I dreamed of what I would do, and I didn’t do anything.”

“Listen to me,” I told her. “You did exactly the right thing. It’s good that you saw him. You didn’t fail me. We are going to catch the motherfucker. Are you ready to talk about it?”

Speaking out about sexual abuse was so taboo back then, especially in the Mexican American community. People used to turn a blind eye and keep their mouths shut because they were too embarrassed or too scared of what might happen to them. Up until 2006 I had never spoken about Trino and the allegations against him, but it was always on my mind. I knew that one day I would get a sign that it was time. That day came in 2006, shortly after Rosie had seen Trino at the diner. Chiquis came home from high school and told me, “Mom, four out of five of my friends have been sexually abused. I want to help them, but I don’t know how.”

I asked Chiquis the same question I asked Rosie: “Are you ready to
speak about it publicly? That is what will help them and millions of other girls and women.” Chiquis, Rosie, and Jacqie all agreed that they were ready. I contacted talk-show host Charytín about doing a special with us. I trusted her and I knew she would handle it with grace and sensitivity.

Everyone was advising me against doing the show. They said my career would be over. I told them I didn’t care if I lost it all. I’d been poor before, I could do it again. To me this issue was too important not to talk about publicly. Somebody had to be the voice and let girls out there know that they were not alone and they had the power to speak up and speak out. I told Rosie, Chiquis, and Jacqie that they could be that voice. God gave us a platform so they could help others. It was the only way I could make sense of what had happened to my sister and my daughters.

At the end of March 2006, Rosie, Chiquis, Jacqie, and I sat down with Charytín in our Corona house to talk openly about the sexual abuse they had suffered. This was the first time that any of them had done a TV interview, and it was on such a difficult topic. I could tell that they were all nervous, and I was too. But I could not show it. I had to be brave so they could be brave. I had to be fearless so they could be fearless.

Once we were on that show, the news started to spread like wildfire. So did the backlash. People said I was only doing it for publicity and attention. They said I was hurting my sister and my daughters. They said we were lying. I didn’t give a fuck. I knew in my heart we were doing the right thing.

In April, K-Love, a national radio network, invited us on. We did a long interview, and the calls started to come in from fans giving us tips or telling us where they might have seen Trino. Then a lady called in and requested that she remain anonymous and that her voice not be put on air. Fear was in her voice. She made us promise
that we would never reveal her name and that her husband and children would never find out that she had spoken to us. I promised her I would keep her safe.

“He is my neighbor,” she said. “I know him.” She gave us his address and some more information about him that let me know that she was telling the truth. She was our first big key.

Our second big key, an FBI agent, called in just a few minutes later, and he also asked that he not be put on air.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, “but your story affected me so deeply. I want to help you.”

With Trino’s address and the FBI agent on our side, we soon had Trino backed against the wall.

On April 22, 2006, the FBI agent called Rosie and said, “You have seen him. You can identify him.”

I was on the road, traveling to my next concert, when Rosie called me.

“You see?” I told her. “It all worked for the good. God has given this to you.”

“We’re going to get him,” she told me. She was in the back of the FBI van with Mom. They were driving through Corona to Trino’s house.

“Are you scared?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t be scared. He’s the motherfucker that should be scared. Poor motherfucker doesn’t even know what’s coming.”

Rosie later told me how it all went down. He was outside watering his garden when they pulled up. They approached him and put him in handcuffs.

His wife, Dora, started to lose it. “Please don’t take him!” she cried. “He’s innocent.”

Then his eight-year-old daughter, Diana, ran out of the house and sobbed, “Don’t take my daddy! Please don’t take my daddy!”

That part broke Rosie’s heart. As the cops led him to a police car, he was only ten or fifteen feet away from Rosie and Mom. They could see him, but he had no idea they were behind those van windows. They told me how he looked so small and powerless, and Rosie said she felt as if the roles had been reversed. He was the one in chains, while she was now free.