American singer Selena (born Selena Quintanilla-Perez, 1971 – 1995) rides in a carriage during a performance at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo at the Houston Astrodome, Houston, Texas, February 26, 1995. The performance was her last before her murder the following month. (Photo by Arlene Richie/Getty Images)
According to NBC News, a new docuseries about the murder of Mexican American singer Selena Quintanilla Pérez is stirring controversy among fans and her family.
The two-part series, “Selena & Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them,” which debuts on Oxygen on Saturday, features extensive interviews with the singer’s killer, Yolanda Saldívar from prison. Saldívar was convicted of first-degree murder in 1995 and is serving a life sentence. (Oxygen is owned by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News.)
NBC News has previously reported that Saldívar unsuccessfully appealed her murder conviction in 1998 and will be eligible for parole next year.
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In the series, Saldívar claims she did not intentionally kill Selena on that fateful day at a motel in Corpus Christi, Texas. Saldívar, who served as the president of the singer’s fan club and was the manager of two of her clothing boutiques, dismissed the long-held theory that she was embezzling money. Instead, Saldívar alleges that Selena was having an extramarital affair and tasked Saldívar with making purchases on her behalf to help cover up the tryst. Saldívar says she was simply paying herself back and that Selena was aware. But in the docuseries, Saldívar did not provide any evidence to substantiate her claims.
“After so many years, I think it’s time to set the story straight,” Saldívar said in a preview clip for the show. “I knew her secrets. And I think that people deserve to know the truth.”
Selena was a star on the rise and just 23 years old when she was gunned down. Considered a trailblazer for Latina crossover stars, she won several Tejano Music Awards, five No. 1 singles on Billboard’s Hot Latin Tracks chart, and a Grammy Award for Best Mexican/American Album in 1994. Her life and death were also the subject of a 1997 movie starring Jennifer Lopez. She was posthumously honored in 2021 by the Recording Academy with the Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
This is not the first time Saldívar has offered her version of events.
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In 1995, she said in an interview with ABC’s “20/20” that she did not deliberately kill Selena.
“They made me out to be a monster, and I just want to say, I did not kill Selena,” she said. “It was an accident, and my conscience is clear.”
In that same interview, she claimed that she and Selena were having a dispute at the Days Inn motel and that in a heated moment, Saldívar put a gun to her head and threatened to take her own life. Saldívar claimed that she then waved her gun in the direction of the door and accidentally shot Selena.
Selena’s widower, Chris Pérez, testified in court in that he and Selena had removed Saldívar from the singer’s checking accounts two weeks before his wife’s death because they “didn’t trust her,” according to a court document from the Texas Court of Appeals from 1998, when Saldivar unsuccessfully appealed her murder conviction.
Several witnesses saw Selena run into the lobby of the motel with Saldívar chasing her waving the gun, according to the appeals court’s decision to uphold her murder conviction. The singer collapsed in the motel lobby and was able to identify Saldívar as the person who had shot her before passing out, according to a description of events in the Texas appeals court document.
Selena’s family slammed the docuseries ahead of its release for giving Saldívar a platform.
“No one’s gonna believe what she has to say anyway. Everyone knows there’s zero truth to anything that comes out of her mouth,” Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., told TMZ.
Selena’s family declined to participate in the docuseries. NBC News has reached out to the family’s spokesperson, as well as Abraham Quintanilla Jr. directly, for comment regarding Saldívar’s claims.
Fans have criticized the timing of the series, which is set to air just one month shy of the 29th anniversary of Selena’s death.
The two-part series includes interviews with “the hostage negotiator who spent nine hours on the phone with Saldívar after she shot Selena, the Corpus Christi Police Department detectives who were on the scene, the prosecutors who put Saldívar on trial and journalists who cover Selena and Latinx culture,” Oxygen said in a news release.
The network told NBC News that those involved with the project would not be available for interviews.
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