Marc Anthony and the late Selena Quintanilla have a lot in common.
Both were introduced to music when they were children by their fathers. Both released their debut studio albums around the same time – Selena in 1989 with her self-titled album and Anthony in 1991 with When the Night Is Over. Both are Grammy-winning artists and have been inducted into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame.
According to Anthony, he and Selena were also similar because they both had to work on their bilingualism early in their careers. “We were both born here [in the United States],” Anthony said. “At first, we had problems with our Spanish, and we were learning to speak it together.”
Improving their Spanish-speaking abilities apparently caused some stress for them both. Selena fans won’t forget the scene in the 1997 biopic Selena where her father Abraham (Edward James Olmos) tells Selena (Jennifer Lopez) that he’s worried about how the press in Mexico will treat her since her Spanish wasn’t perfect. Selena tells him that she’s been singing in Spanish her entire life.
“Singing, yes, but when you speak it, you speak it a little funny,” Olmos’ Abraham says.
Although Marc Anthony is Puerto Rican and not Mexican, he could absolutely relate. “We had a lot of pressure to learn the language, but we would always laugh about it,” he said.
He added: “I had an incredible love for her. I think Selena shines because of the way she handled her life, her talent, her career.”
And we couldn’t agree more, because to this day, she still shines.