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Selena to be honored with Lifetime Achievement Award Sunday on ‘The Grammys’

The Queen of Tejano’s career was tragically cut short when she was only 23, but her music lives on forever in the hearts of fans all over the world.

HOUSTON — Selena will join a long list of musical legends when she is honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award Sunday at the “Grammy Awards.”

The award celebrates performers who, “during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording.”

You can watch the "Grammy Awards" this Sunday, March 14, at 7 p.m. on KHOU/CBS. 

In Selena’s case, the honor is all the more impressive considering she was only 23 when her life was tragically cut short by a bullet in Corpus Christi. It happened 26 years ago this month.

The year before her death, the Texas native became the first female Tejano artist to win a Grammy for Best Mexican-American Album with “Selena Live,” according to Grammy.com.

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The Queen of Tejano’s album “Amor Prohibido” was nominated in the same category in 1995 with hits including "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom," "No Me Queda Más" and "Fotos Y Recuerdos.”

That was the same year Selena performed to a record crowd at the Houston Rodeo in her iconic purple jumpsuit. More than 61,000 thrilled fans packed the Astrodome, never dreaming it would be one of her final concerts.

Just three months after she was killed by fan club president Yolanda Saldivar, Selena’s English crossover album “Dreaming of You” was released. It became the first predominantly Spanish-language album to debut at No. 1 on Billboard.

The star's life story later became a movie that helped launch the acting career of Jennifer Lopez. The actress even lived with Selena’s sister, Suzette Quintanilla, in Corpus Christi to prepare for the role, according to Grammy.com.

More recently, Netflix released a drama about the singer's life called “Selena: The Series” in December 2020. 

In between, fans often waited in long lines to scoop up anything with her name: from fashion to makeup to dolls and even drinking cups.

Selena herself, who would have turned 50 this April, summed up her all-too-brief life in a favorite quote of hers, shared by her sister: “The goal isn’t to live forever, but to create something that will...”

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