‘Selena: The Series’: Here’s What Selena’s Dad, Abraham Quintanilla, Is Up to Now
Selena #Selena
If you binge-watched all of Selena: The Series already (hi, guilty!) and you’re now on a quest to find out what happened to the IRL counterparts of every one of the show’s characters (that’s half the fun of watching based on true story things, right?) well, you’ve come to the right spot. The series, of course, is based on the queen of Tejano music herself, and it follows her rise to fame to her tragic murder at just 23 years old. But the show also kinda—surprisingly—gave just as much attention to one other person: her dad, Abraham Quintanilla Jr.
In the series, Selena’s daddio is on a mission to get his kids famous for their musical talents, and clearly he was pretty darn good at it. But what exactly has the real-life Abraham been up to since then? Turns out the answer is: a whole lot.
For starters, the now 81-year-old record producer acted as an executive producer on Selena: The Series, meaning he gave his blessing and his first-hand stories to the show’s development and production. This seems great, but apparently, it landed him in some hot (and potentially veryyy expensive) water. He and his daughter Suzette (also a producer on the series) are now being sued for $1 million by Moctesuma Esparza, the guy who produced the 1997 movie Selena. Esparza is claiming that Selena’s father violated a contract they had signed way back in 1995 that gave him exclusive rights to tell Selena’s life story. Fun fact: Abraham was ALSO an executive producer on that movie. But as it turns out, this isn’t Abraham’s first legal rodeo. A lot more on that later.
When he’s not working on Selena-related projects—of which there have been many—Quintanilla is still producing new music under his Latin music label, Q Productions, that he started in 1993, and he even used to produce some of Selena’s music. He’s still very much involved in The Selena Foundation, a charity he and his family started soon after Selena’s death that raises money to help children in crisis. And in case you were wondering, the father of three is still married to his wife of 57 years (!!), Marcella.
As you can probably imagine, Selena’s dad was absolutely devastated after his daughter was murdered by the woman that he himself chose as the president of Selena’s fan club. Then things quickly got even messier with a whole bunch of legal issues over Selena’s estate that are STILL going on today, more than 25 years later.
The gist of it is that two months after Selena’s death, her dad hired an attorney to draw up an estate agreement that would keep him in charge of Selena’s music and give him exclusive rights to everything Selena-related, including her images and likeness. But for the agreement to be legit, he needed to get Selena’s then-windowed husband, guitarist Chris Perez, to sign off on it, which he eventually did, and he was given a 25% cut of all profits in exchange. Cut to 2016 and Perez announces he’s working on a deal to create a TV show based on his memoir, To Selena, with Love. But Selena’s dad was not having any of it, and swiftly sued his son-in-law for “unauthorized exploitation” of Selena’s image. And as if that wasn’t enough family drama, Perez then counter-sued and said that Abraham sneakily got him to sign the original agreement when he was in a very dark and vulnerable headspace, and that the agreement should be void. The legal battle is still raging on and a trial is scheduled to start in February of next year.
Funny enough, Abraham has been working on an autobiography of his own and announced earlier this year that he finally finished writing it. There’s no release date as of now, so TBD on when you can get more Selena-related deets.