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In new memoir, 'Forgiveness,' Chiquis Rivera talks Jenni, sexual abuse, and rumors
By Bryan Llenas
Published December 31, 2016
More than two years after the tragic death of her mother superstar singer Jenni Rivera, Chiquis Rivera has released a new memoir called "Forgiveness," which details her sometimes turbulent relationship with her mom, the sexual abuse suffered at the hands of her father, and more.
"I feel like I got a big weight lifted off my shoulders. I feel free," Rivera told Fox News Latino. "This my story. This is my life. This is my truth. I’m ready to move forward and heal. I feel healed. I feel so much better."
The title of the book encompasses the theme of her memoir. She takes readers on a journey toward forgiving her father – who sexually abused her beginning when she was 8 years old until she was 12. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the abuse in 2007.
"I don’t hate him at all. I don’t hold any resentment," Rivera said but she doesn't plan on having any kind of relationship with her father. "He’s never asked me for forgiveness but I forgave him. I feel like I need to be loyal to my mom because his family thinks my mom put this in my head."
She also talks about forgiving herself.
Chiquis and her mother Jenni stopped speaking to one another in October of 2012. Just two months later, her mother died in a tragic airplane crash in Mexico. They never had a chance to reconcile.
"I thought that I was really going to have that opportunity, I felt it coming that my mom and I were going to talk," Rivera said. "I just never got the chance."
The fight was based on a rumor that Chiquis had slept with her stepfather, Jenni's husband at the time, Esteban Loaiza.
"It’s absolutely not true," she said. "I would never do something like that to any woman, especially my mom."
The rumor deeply affected her relationship with her mother.
"I don’t know where the rumor came from, I don’t think she ever truly believed it," she said.
The two had a strained relationship even before the rumors began, and she attributed it to the two being so close in age – they were only 15 years apart.
"My mom and I were only 15 years apart so it’s normal to have a relationship like that with your mother. It’s kind of a love and hate relationship. More love."
Rivera says the memoir is about offering inspiration to others and especially to help other women, particularly Latinas, who have been sexually abused but feel as though they cannot speak up for fear of betraying their families.
"It’s such a taboo in our community. They don’t want to talk about it. It’s hush hush...And I don’t think that should happen because it keeps on happening generation after generation and it’s not fair."
Chiquis' new album "Ahora" or "Now" is set to be released on June 2nd.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/in-new-memoir-forgiveness-chiquis-rivera-talks-jenni-sexual-abuse-and-rumors