The name of Selena Quintanilla’s murderer has been circulating online recently in connection with Shakira. But now, the alleged source that supposedly spoke with Yolanda Saldívar about the Colombian pop icon is speaking out against the fake news.
Last week, an unsubstantiated news item that Saldívar had an interview with the BBC started spreading online. According to multiple reputable publications that picked up the unverified news, the woman who murdered Quintanilla in March 1995 told the BBC that she had aspirations to get close to another Latine pop star. Saldívar will be eligible for parole on March 30, 2025, which will be 30 years after she was convicted of first-degree murder for killing the Tejano icon. She was quoted saying that if she were released from prison next year she would like to work with none other than Shakira.
“I would like to be Shakira’s right hand,” Saldívar was quoted as saying in the interview that never took place.
Yesterday (June 10), the BBC finally cleared the air on this alleged interview with Saldívar. The San Antonio Express-News reached out to the BBC for comment, which allowed them to put the fast-spreading rumor to rest.
“I can confirm that this report is false and no such interview has taken place between BBC News and Yolanda Saldivar,” a spokesperson for the BBC confirmed to the San Antonio Express-News.
After the BBC set the record straight, some of the stories that originally reported on the fake news have seemingly been deleted. Other stories that added fuel to the fire have since been updated with a note with the BBC’s statement to the San Antonio Express-News.
Saldívar’s name surfaced earlier this year when she appeared in an Oxygen docuseries called Selena & Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them. Remezla’s Lissete Lanuza Sáenz slammed the series as “exploitative” for glorifying Quintanilla’s murderer and not honoring the late singer’s legacy and memory in any way.