Selena‘s sister, Suzette Quintanilla, has revealed that the late singer’s family was pressured to greenlight the 1997 biopic about her life.
While promoting the 30th anniversary of Selena’s Dreaming of You album, Quintanilla paid a visit to the On That Note podcast hosted by Boyz II Men’s Shawn Stockman and spoke about her sister’s music career. At one point in the conversation, Quintanilla opened up about how the film came about and how her family was forced into making it.
According to Quintanilla, the film was in the process of being made, and the family’s legal team advised them to get on board to protect Selena’s story from getting sensationalized.
“We were forced to make the movie,” said Quintanilla. “Literally months after she died, our lawyers got word that Hollywood was already going to start making a movie, and if you don’t have control over your own, it’s going to be whatever they want to put in it. So, that’s the only reason why my father [Abraham] had to make the decision to move forward and say, ‘We’re doing this movie.'”
She also added that the Quintanilla family was not interested in doing a movie so soon, especially two years after Selena’s death. The star was killed in 1995 by her fan club president, Yolanda Saldívar.
“It wasn’t something that was on our radar at all; it was way too soon to be honest with you. It came out literally two years after she died, and there was criticism over that,” she said while adding the family got heat for “being all about money.”
Despite the backlash they received for supposedly capitalizing on Selena’s passing, Quintanilla says she stands by the decision her family made and the film itself. Selena was directed by Gregory Nava and released in March 1997, becoming a commercial and critical success.
Jennifer Lopez was nominated for Best Actress at the 55th Golden Globe Awards for her performance as Selena, and the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2021.
