E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
David Mcnew / Reuters
Martha Hernandez and six-year-old daughter Evlin mourn with Soledad Hernandez and her six-year-old daughter Betsy as they watch a live broadcast of the memorial service for Mexican-American singer and Spanish language television personality Jenni Rivera at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, Calif., on Dec. 19. The 43-year-old Long Beach, California native and six other people died on December 9 when her rented Learjet crashed shortly after takeoff from Monterrey, Mexico. A new compilation album of songs from her albums over the last seven years, "La Misma Gran Senora" or "The Same Great Lady", was to be released two days later.
David Mcnew / Reuters
A woman holds a white rose as she watches a live broadcast of the memorial service for Mexican-American singer and Spanish language television personality Jenni Rivera at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, Calif., on Dec. 19.
Kevin Winter / Getty Images for LARAS, file
Singer Jenni Rivera performs onstage during the 11th annual Latin GRAMMY Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on Nov. 11, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Reuters -- Thousands of mourners on Wednesday packed a Los Angeles theater to pay their final respects to Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera more than a week after her death in a plane crash.
Rivera, 43, best known for her work in the Mexican folk Nortena and Banda genres, died after the small jet she was traveling in crashed in northern Mexico on December 9.
Rivera's family, dressed in white, led the memorial service eulogizing the singer. A bank of white roses was displayed in front of Rivera's bright red coffin and a brass band performed musical interludes.
More than 6,000 people crowded into the theater about 30 miles north of her childhood home in Long Beach, California. Tickets for the service at the Gibson Amphitheatre sold out within minutes, organizers said.
Frederic J. Brown / AFP - Getty Images
Fans of the late Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera wait to attend the memorial service at the Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City on Dec. 19, in California. The service, billed by the Rivera family as a "Celestial Graduation,'' was broadcast live and watched by her many fans off a big screen at a Universal CityWalk plaza.
Read more on NBCLatino.com:
- Jenni Rivera memorial: Touching tribute by family and fans
- Jenni Rivera: advocate and champion of women
- Jenni Rivera’s plane owner says pilot may have suffered heart attack