The brother of iconic Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez has apologized to fans after berating them during a performance in San Antonio over the weekend, revealing a cancer scare led to a chain of events that culminated in his on-stage blow-up.
A.B. Quintanilla and his act, A.B. Quintanilla Y Los Kumbia Kings All Starz, were headlining Tejano Explosion 2024 on Saturday night as the final concert in a weeklong series. But Quintanilla, who on Thursday performed at the Latin American Music Awards, was soon visibly frustrated by the apparent lack of audience participation.
“(It’s) like somebody put a gun to your head and forced you to be here tonight,” the 60-year-old said in video shared by TikTok user eat_teach_reapeat, identified as Dallas resident Maria Perez by the San Antonio Express-News.
ADVERTISEMENT
“And that feels horrible as a musician to work so fucking hard over all these years to bring you hits, and you guys come here, and you can’t even fucking raise your hands to fucking clap or be happy, man, you know, and that feels sad for us and for me,” Quintanilla said, adding, “I’ll take my music somewhere else.”
@eat_teach_repeat #tejanoexplosion2024 #abquintanilla #selen #sanantonio #fiesta2024 ♬ original sound - Always hungry
Quintanilla then vowed his performance at Tejano Explosion would be his last at the event. He continued, “I traveled all the way from Las Vegas, received love all the way from over there. I come to my hometown in Texas, San Antonio, and I get no fucking love over here, man. That’s not cool. That’s not acceptable.”
As Quintanilla berated the audience for not supporting Tejano music the way they do the Dallas Cowboys, the crowd began to boo in return. Some members could be seen giving him the middle finger as he spoke. Responding to the gestures, he said, “God Bless you. They’re not real fans, man.”
@eat_teach_repeat #abquintanilla #tejanofest2024 #sanantonio #fiesta2024 ♬ original sound - Always hungry
“When I started with Selena, we got booed a lot of times, and you know where we went?” he said. “To the top. So boo all the fuck you want.”
The Daily Beast has contacted Quintanilla for comment.
In an Instagram video on Sunday night, Quintanilla apologized to the audience, “to all the people that were there...for my words, my actions, what I said, but at the same time I wanted to share something with you guys that’s a little bit personal, and normally I don’t like to share things that are personal when it comes to health matters,” he said. “But in this situation, I feel I need to address last night.
Quintanilla revealed three weeks before the performance, he underwent a cancer scare and was advised to undergo a biopsy. He said he was told by his doctor that he would have to go off some prescribed medications, which ‘control some mental issues that have... I guess after Selena passed away, they came around.’ I became bipolar, I became OCD/ADD/PSTD, I’m on the spectrum basically, for people that understand that. I’m bipolar, basically. And when not taking medications, things that happen like last night on San Antonio onstge, it’s the scariest thing because your brain just goes crazy, you break basically, and I broke last night. I said things that I don’t mean, that I don’t feel in my heart. From the bottom of my heart, I’d like to apologize to everybody,” said Quintanilla.
In the end, the Tejano music star was not diagnosed with any form of cancer, Quintanilla confirmed.
