(1971-1995)

Who Was Selena Quintanilla?

Selena Quintanilla made her recording debut in the ’80s, going on to become an award-winning recording artist in the Latin music scene with albums like Amor Prohibido and Selena Live. In 1995, she was murdered by the founder of her fan club. Her last album, Dreaming of You, was released posthumously in 1995.

🎵 Listen to her greatest hits or 🎥 watch Selena on Amazon.

Early Life and Family

Selena was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas. Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla, was a former musician. He managed and produced his family’s group, Selena Y Los Dinos.

Selena grew up speaking English, but her father taught her to sing in Spanish so she could resonate with the Latino community. She learned the lyrics phonetically at first, and eventually learned to speak Spanish fluently. She began performing as a child.

Around the age of 10, Selena became the lead singer in her family’s band. The musical group started out playing weddings and clubs in their native Texas. The band featured her brother Abraham on bass guitar and her sister Suzette on the drums.

Selena was considered the “Queen of Tejano,” a type of Mexican music that incorporated other styles, such as country and western. She was also sometimes referred to as the “Mexican Madonna” for her sexy outfits and dance moves.

Albums

Ven Conmigo (1990)

Selena’s 1990 album was the first Tejano record to achieve gold record status, meaning it sold more than 500,000 copies.

Live! (1993)

Selena became the first female Tejano artist to take home a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album. Her album Live! hit No. 2 on the Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart.

Amor Prohibido (1994)

Selena and the band played numerous tour dates in New York, California, Puerto Rico and Argentina in 1994. Amor Prohibido was released that same year and went gold.

Dreaming of You (1995)

Soon after the release of Live!, Selena went to work on her first English-language album that she hoped would put her on the top of the U.S. pop music charts. Unfortunately, she did not live to see its success.

Dreaming of You was released after Selena’s death and became a huge hit. The album hit number one on the Billboard Top 200 the week of August 5, 1995. That made it the first predominantly Spanish-language album to top the chart.

Popular compilation albums of Selena’s music include 12 Super Exitos (1994) and All My Hits Todos Mis Exitos (1999).

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY’S SELENA FACT CARD

Songs

Selena saw seven songs hit No. 1 and 14 more songs hit the top 10 on the Hot Latin Songs Chart. “Dreaming of You” peaked at number 22 on the Hot 100 charts.

Other popular songs by Selena include:

• “No Me Queda Mas”
• “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom”
• “Amor Prohibido”
• “Tu Solo Tu”
• “I Could Fall in Love”
• “El Chico del Apartamento 512”
• “Que Creias”
• “Baila Esta Cumbia”
• “I’m Getting Used to You”
• “La Carcacha”
• “Fotos Y Recuerdos (Back On The Chain Gang)”
• “Buenos Amigos”
• “Dondequiera Que Estes”
• “Missing My Baby”
• “Siempre Hace Frio”
• “No Debes Jugar”
• “Techno Cumbia”
• “La Llamada”
• “Como La Flor”
• “No Quiero Saber”

Grammy and Other Awards

In 1993, Selena won a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album for her album Live! at the 36th Grammy Awards.

Selena was very popular with Tejano music fans. At the 1987 Tejano Music Awards, she won both “Best Female Vocalist of the Year” and “Performer of the Year.”

Husband

Selena married Chris Pérez on April 2, 1992. The couple met and began secretly dating in 1990 when Pérez joined Selena’s band, Los Dinos, as the lead guitarist. They were married for nearly three years before Selena was killed in 1995.

READ MORE: Selena Quintanilla’s Whirlwind Love Story With Husband Chris Pérez

Death

Selena was shot and killed in Corpus Christi, Texas, on March 31, 1995. She was just 23 years old.

Selena’s murder sent shockwaves through the Latino community, and her fans around the world mourned the singer’s passing.

READ MORE: Inside Selena’s Final Days

Killer

Yolanda Saldivar, the founder of the Selena fan club, killed Selena. Saldivar had been managing Selena’s boutique in San Antonio. The two were meeting in a hotel room to discuss Selena’s concerns that Saldivar was embezzling money, according to court records, when Saldivar shot Selena. Saldivar claimed the shot was accidental. She was sentenced to life in prison in October 1995.

Saldivar is up for parole in 2025, as she will have served at least 30 years of her sentence at that time.

READ MORE: How Yolanda Saldívar’s Obsession With Selena Turned Deadly

Movie

Selena’s life story became the subject of a 1997 film, Selena, which stars Jennifer Lopez as the Tejano superstar and Edward James Olmos as her father. Lopez became the first Latina actress to take home $1 million for a movie role, and she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance.

READ MORE: The Impact Playing Selena Had on the Jennifer Lopez’s Life

Book, Lawsuit and Series

Pérez wrote a book about his time with Selena, To Selena, With Love, published in 2012. He planned to make the book into a TV series.

In 2016, Abraham brought a lawsuit against Pérez for violating an estate agreement that Pérez signed shortly after the singer’s death that gave her father the exclusive rights to Selena’s name, voice, photographs and story in perpetuity. Pérez lost his appeal in late 2018, and both sides agreed to dismiss the lawsuit the following May.

Meanwhile, Netflix announced it was developing a scripted series about the singer’s life, with the Quintanilla family serving as executive producers. Selena: The Series, starring The Walking Dead’sChristian Serratos, debuted in December 2020.

Legacy

The popularity of Selena’s music and persona has endured through the years. Selena was posthumously honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on November 3, 2017, proclaimed “Selena Day” in Los Angeles by Mayor Eric Garcetti. That year, reality star Kim Kardashian West also dressed up as the Tejano singer as part of her homage to music legends for Halloween.

In February 2019, Texas State Representative Ana-Maria Ramos introduced a bill that would designate April 16, Selena’s birthday, as a holiday. That year, San Diego State University also announced plans to offer a new course, “Selena and Latinx Media Representation,” to begin in 2020.

In March 2020, Selena became the first Latina artist and the ninth person overall to be inducted into the Star Trail of Fame outside the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

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QUICK FACTS

• Name: Selena Quintanilla
• Birth Year: 1971
• Birth date: April 16, 1971
• Birth State: Texas
• Birth City: Lake Jackson
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Known as the ‘Queen of Tejano Music,’ Selena Quintanilla was a beloved Latin recording artist who was killed by the president of her fan club at the age of 23.
• Industries
• Music
• Astrological Sign: Aries
• Schools
• The American School of Correspondence in Chicago, Illinois
• Death Year: 1995
• Death date: March 31, 1995
• Death State: Texas
• Death City: Corpus Christi
• Death Country: United States

Fact Check

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Selena Quintanilla Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/selena
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E Television Networks
• Last Updated: October 8, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014

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QUOTES

• If you try to come off as this big-time star with an attitude, people don’t like that.
• Saying that you’re a star is like saying you’re a freak.
• I didn’t even start taking this seriously until I was older, when I was about 15, when I was actually winning the awards.
• When love hits you, it hits you and you don’t expect it.
• I’m not one to say this is where I want to be in five years, because each day is different. You can plan a whole day and nothing comes out the way you plan it.
• When I am singing, I believe that if I respect the public, then they will respect me and I know it. It’s noticeable.
• Wearing the bras on stage shocked everybody, and that’s probably why I got branded for the bra.
• There’s a lot of men in this business. If you can’t speak for yourself, they are going to run you down every which way.
• When a child does bad things, the parents are always going to love their child even if they do something bad.
• Even though I was a girl and I lost some of my childhood, it was for a good cause.