Selena Quintanilla’s dad Abraham Jr. has died aged 86 just weeks after intimate Netflix doc on ‘Queen of Tejano Music’
THE father of singer Selena Quintanilla has died at the age of 86, his family has confirmed.
Abraham Quintanilla Jr. died on Saturday; his son, A.B. Quintanilla III, confirmed it on Instagram.
“It’s with a heavy heart to let you guys know that my Dad passed away today…,” he wrote.
A cause of death has not yet been revealed.
He famously managed the career of his daughter Selena, overseeing her rise to fame in the late 1980s before she was killed in 1995.
The iconic singer known for her hits including Como la Flor and Dreaming of You, was murdered in Texas by her friend and former nurse Yolanda Saldivar.
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Saldivar was president of Selena’s fan club and manager of her boutiques business, jobs that she lost shortly before the murder after it was discovered that she had been embezzling money.
She was denied parole in March this year after being sentenced to 30 years to life behind bars in October 1995.
Her next opportunity for parole will be in March 2030.
After the death of his daughter, Abraham made it his mission to preserve her legacy as the Queen of Tejano Music and one of the greatest Latino artists of all time, as named by Billboard magazine.
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News of her murder shocked the nation, especially those in her home state of Texas, with the then governor George W. Bush declaring April 16 as Selena Day.
Her album, Dreaming of You, released after her death, soared to the top of the Billboard 200 – a first for a Latin artist.
Two years later, the film Selena was released by Warner Bros, starring Jennifer Lopez at the beginning of her career.
Selena: The Series was released by Netflix in 2020, documenting her life and career and featuring Christian Serratos from The Walking Dead.
This has been followed this year by the November release of the new Netflix doc, Selena y Los Dinos: A Family’s Legacy.
It is told by her immediate family including her father.
In it, he recalled the time he first took his daughter to a record label in San Antonio with the hope of launching her career.
“At first, they were skeptical because it’s a girl — and a young girl. I said, ‘Well, let’s give it a try one time,’” he said.
It was then that she recorded her first song and was catapulted to fame.