Olga Tañon, the Puerto Rican Merengue maestro, recently spilled the beans about her close-knit friendship with Selena Quintanilla during a candid chat with Enrique Santos. She revealed that they were on the brink of a musical collaboration with the legendary singer, and maintained a close relationship up until Selena’s untimely demise.
Interestingly, Tañon was initially offered the chance to portray Selena in the 1997 biopic, a role that ultimately became Jennifer Lopez’s golden ticket to stardom, and marked the beginning of her illustrious career in showbiz.
Tañon spoke fondly of her bond with Selena, stating, “The love I had for Selena was something different.” She also confessed why she chose to step aside from the opportunity. “I wasn’t an actress for that role,” she admitted. “I didn’t know how to speak English at the time,” she added. Tañon was in Texas when the tragic news broke, while she was in Argentina for a promotional campaign. The bearer of the sad news was none other than Marc Anthony.
During the interview, Tañon shared that Marc had spent the previous evening with Selena. She was in the process of leaving Argentina when she heard the devastating news, just “eight days” after making plans to meet Selena.
“We were going to do a duet together,” Tañon revealed. “I know how to recognize my weaknesses, first I had to recognize that I didn’t know the language.” Despite declining the role, she praised Jennifer Lopez’s portrayal. “They couldn’t have chosen a person who looked more similar, which was Jennifer. That role was not for Tañón, it was for Jennifer because she did it identically and she did it wonderfully, I enjoyed it so much.”
Tañon concluded, “I couldn’t have said yes to something that I knew I was not going to do well. I didn’t even know the language, Selena was a gringo-Mexican, the way she spoke to me was very Americanized.”