Plane crash in northern Mexico claims the life of singer Jenni Rivera

If you set out to design a reality TV star, you couldn’t have created a more perfect specimen than Jenni Rivera, the norteno, banda and Mun2 TV star who died Sunday in the crash of a small plane in the Mexican mountains.

She was 43, three times divorced, the mother of five and one of the defining stars of Spanish-language television, where her brassy, no-nonsense style made her such an icon to U.S. Latinas that ABC was developing a sitcom for her, titled just “Jenni.”

Yet she was also “very down to earth,” her oldest daughter Chiquis said in July. “What you see on television is real, but she’s not one of those stars who forgets her family. She knows what it was like to struggle, so she’s always been there for us.”

Rivera developed fragrances, cosmetics and clothing lines, and started the Jenni Rivera Love Foundation, which helps single mothers and victims of domestic abuse.

Rivera was both in her earlier life, and that was just the start of a story that made it unnecessary for her reality show to invent any drama.

She was born into a musical family, but she took a circuitous route to get into music herself.
Federal authorities inspect the site of the airplane accident.
Her father Pedro founded the Cintas Acuario label and her four brothers, most famously her younger brother Lupillo, are all Mexican musicians.
Rivera later said she grew up as a good-time girl, a status perhaps confirmed when she became pregnant as a high school sophomore.
She graduated from high school and eventually married the child’s father, Jose Trinidad Marin. They would have three children before she divorced him in 1992 on grounds of abuse. He was later convicted of raping one of their daughters.
After the divorce she remarried, got a college degree in business administration and began working in real estate.
She went to work for her father’s label, but signed with EMI/Capitol’s Latin division in 1995. Her first album, “Chacalosa,” which is slang for “party girl,” sold more than a million copies.
She switched in 1999 to Sony’s Fonovisa, where she has sold an estimated 15 million albums, almost all in regional Mexican styles.
Much of her music focuses on the same kinds of themes as U.S. country music: heartbreak, relationships, cheating, seemingly good men gone bad.
Her nicknames included “La Diva De La Banda” and “La Dama Divina.”
As the popularity of her Mun2 show “I Love Jenni” increased, she was increasingly marketed as a singer in the U.S., and her 2008 album “Jenni” became the first No. 1 on Billboard’s new Latin albums charts.
It featured her version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”
She sold out the Staples Center in Los Angeles last summer, and a record-signing in Riverside, Calif., drew so many fans police had to be summoned to control the crowd.
Two years ago she also launched a spinoff reality show for Chiquis, called “Jenni Rivera Presents Chiquis & Raq-C.”
That morphed last year into “Chiquis ‘N Control,” about Chiquis moving out into her own apartment.
“It was very emotional for my mom,” said Chiquis in July. “Latinas aren’t supposed to move out until they get married. We both cried a lot.
“We may argue, because we’re both strong-willed, but she’s my closest friend. She’s always there for me.”
After her divorce from Marin, Rivera married Jose Lopez in 1997. They had two children before divorcing in 2003. In 2010 she married former Yankees pitcher Esteban Loiaza, from whom she separated earlier this year.
Mun2 issued a statement Sunday evening saying, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Rivera family and the families of her team.”
Telemundo broadcast a two-hour special Sunday night at 7 and 9 on Jenni Rivera’s life. Mun2 reran two previous “I Love Jenni” specials.