Fandom is a peculiar thing. We put our favourite people on a pedestal and worship them to an almost god-like status. We live and breathe their every moment. It even gets to a point where if you have a negative opinion of certain celebrities the fans attack you on social media. Some would even kill for their idols. For instance, when John Hinckley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan, he was doing it to impress the actress Jodie Foster.
As well as killing others to impress their celebrities, obsessed fans also turn on them. A Bad album or a throw-away comment said out of context, which the tabloids have picked up on could sway the unhinged fan to turn on their idol. This week’s story is one of those stories. About a young singer who was about to explode onto the world’s music scene until a fan clinging on to power tried to stop her by any means necessary. This week The Beat Marches On to the 31st March 1995, when Selena is shot by the president of her fan club.
Selena Quintinilla-Perez started performing with her family at the age of nine. They decided to tour after the family-owned restaurant went out of business in 1981. This was one of the best decisions they made because the singer had the talent to take them to the highest of heights in the music industry.
Performing as Selena y Los Dinos the family band played Tejano music, a Mexican-US hybrid style of music that is typically performed in Spanish, and quickly became popular throughout the Spanish-speaking community in Texas. They became so popular that at the age of 14, the singer’s father took her out of school to tour around the country.
Although Selena sang in Spanish, she wasn’t fluent in the language. The singer had to learn and learn quickly not only how to say the words but also how to sing the words.
At the age of just 15, Selena won Female Vocalist of the Year at the Tejano Music Awards. This was the start of her star rising. She was beloved by millions of Spanish-speaking fans so much she was dubbed the ‘Mexican Madonna’ by the press.
Knowing her potential as a star her father, Abraham, acted as the band’s business manager. He was a former musician himself and knew how the industry can be cruel. He decided that the Los Dinos part of the band should be dropped, and it should be just Selena. By 1989 aged just 19 her debut solo album was released and sold well.
As the singer’s popularity grew, a fan club was created, led by nurse Yolanda Salvidar who had admired Selena since her early days. As time went on the two grew closer together and became close friends. So close that Salvidar started to get involved with business decisions.
By 1994 Selena had grown even bigger. She was selling out stadiums in her home state of Texas and even won a Grammy for her live album ‘Selena Live’. The singer even ventured into other business opportunities. She had a boutique called ‘Selena etc’ which she let her fan club president and newfound friend Yolanda run.
During her time running the boutique, Yolanda’s colleagues noticed some strange behaviour coming from her. The friendship with Selena made Salvidar possessive of the singer, not in a ‘She’s my friend, not yours’ way, but more in an unhinged way. The unhealthy obsession forced some of the staff to quit the boutique. A former roommate even alleged that she had a shrine to the Tejano star.
It wasn’t just the behavioural issues that plagued the singer’s number-one fan. Running the boutique meant the fan club was getting neglected, and hell hath no fury than a fan scorned. The fan’s anger was getting noticed by Selena’s family, and being dedicated to the fans, Abraham decided to investigate what was going on. And what he found was a lot more than neglecting a few fans.
In March 1995 the family confronted Yolanda about what they found. Embezzling around $200,000 from the boutique, not sending out merchandise ordered by fans and stealing important financial documents. Selena’s father wanted her to be arrested but the singer talked him out of it. However, the accusations were denied by Salvidar.
Scared of Abraham, Salvidar fled the country at first then returned and purchased a gun to protect herself. She was still employed at the boutique until she handed back the financial records to Selena. They arranged to meet at the Days Inn on the 30th of March for Yolanda to hand back the documents. There were some held back by the troubled fan.
Selena returned the next day to get the remaining records and have this saga finished once and for all. Yolanda on the other hand had other ideas. She had claimed she was raped when she first fled to Mexico. Whether this is true or not is still up for debate, as Salvidar kept changing the story and the crime being committed in another country, the hospital couldn’t do a rape kit.
Returning to the hotel there was a heated argument between the two. Loud voices could be heard by guests and workers. Then a loud bang was heard by a maintenance man who thought it was a tyre exploding.
Selena ran out of the room to the reception area with Yolanda chasing her with the smoking gun in hand but returned back to the room when she was out of reach. The singer begged the staff to lock the door before collapsing from the loss of blood in the lobby and losing life quickly. The blood trail was 392 feet long. Her last words were ‘Yolanda Salvidar. Room 158’. At the age of just 23 Selena was dead.
An ambulance was called and took the singer to the hospital, but it was too late. The Tejano music community was in shock when the news broke. Their star had been taken away from them by someone who she trusted too. At the autopsy, the Medical Examiner said if the bullet was one millimetre on either side of the wound she would have survived.
The police were called to arrest Salvidar. With multiple threats to kill herself, there was a standoff with the law for nine hours. News outlets in the US were giving up-to-the-minute coverage of the confrontation. While the standoff was going on, fans were convening to pay their respects to Selena. It was like their Queen had died.
Eventually, when the standoff had finished Yolanda was arrested and sentenced to life in prison and not eligible for parole until 2025. She hasn’t unveiled why she killed Selena but has fed some contradictory admissions in various interviews.
At the time of her death, Selena was looking to make a change in her musical direction. In the studio, the singer was looking to start recording her music in English rather than the Spanish that had made her so famous. The family decided to release the album even though it was unfinished. Nevertheless, it debuted at the top of the Billboard album charts.
The legacy of Selena shone through towards the end of the decade when Hispanic acts started to rise to the top of the charts. Acts like Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez, who played the singer in a biopic in 1997, broke through and carried on down the road Selena started to pave. If she had survived, then there would be no doubt that she would be there with them.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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The websites used for research were:
11 Chilling Details Behind Selena’s Murder in 1995 (ranker.com)
Selena Quintanilla’s Death And The Tragic Story Behind It (allthatsinteresting.com)
Yolanda Saldívar Finally Confesses Why She Killed Selena Quintanilla (hiplatina.com)
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