Sultry singer Jenni Rivera perishes in plane crash

Mexican-American singer and reality TV star Jenni Rivera was killed in a plane crash in northern Mexico. She was 43

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. 

 

 Jenni Rivera performs at the 2009 Billboard Latin Music Awards in Miami.

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.”