Rivera was born on July 2, 1969 and raised in Long Beach, California, to Rosa Saavedra and Pedro Rivera, who were from Mexico. Her parents raised Rivera and her sister and four brothers in a tight-knit, musical household; her brother Lupillo is also a regional Mexican musician. Rivera spoke both English and Spanish fluently. Her family introduced her to traditional Mexican music, including the genres of banda, norteña, and ranchera. Rivera earned straight A’s in school until her sophomore year, when at 15 she became pregnant with the first of her five children, Janney “Chiquis” Marín-Rivera. She supported the two of them by selling CDs at flea markets, while working toward her GED at a continuation school and graduating as class valedictorian. Speaking in 2003 of her experiences as a teenage mother, Rivera explained:

She attended California State University, Long Beach, and obtained a college degree in business administration and worked in real estate before going to work for her father’s record label. Her father was a bartender and businessman who created the record label Cintas Acuario in 1987, which launched the career of Mexican singer and songwriter Chalino Sánchez.

Rivera was introduced to music in 1992 when she recorded as a Father’s Day present to her father; she made more recordings and signed to Capitol/EMI’s Latin division. Her first album, Chacalosa (slang for “party girl”), was released in 1995.

Rivera was married three times and had five children. She gave birth to her first child, Janney, better known as Chiquis, (born 1985), while still in high school. She later married the baby’s father, José Trinidad Marín, and they had two more children: Jacqueline (born 1989) and Michael (born 1991), but she ended the marriage in 1992 citing physical and emotional abuse. In 1997 her younger sister Rosie confessed that Jenni’s ex-husband (Marín) used to sexually molest her, and was now doing the same to Chiquis, physical examination showed he’d done the same with Jacqie. The molestation case was opened in 1997 and Marín spent 9 years as a fugitive before he was apprehended in April 2006, convicted of sexual assault and rape and sentenced to more than 31 years in prison without parole.

Rivera married her second husband, Juan López, in 1997. They had daughter Jenicka in 1997 and son Juan Angel in 2001 before they divorced in 2003. In 2007, López was convicted of selling drugs. He died from complications of pneumonia while in prison in 2009.

She signed to Sony Music in the late 1990s, and then with Fonovisa Records in 1999; in the same year, Rivera released her first commercial album with Fonovisa, titled Que Me Entierren Con la Banda, featuring local hit “Las Malandrinas”. Rivera stated that she wrote “Las Malandrinas” to pay homage to her female fans. She also said, “The song blew up. People became interested. That’s when Jenni Rivera the artist was actually born.”

In 2001, she released the records Dejate Amar and Se las Voy a Dar a Otro, which garnered her, her first Latin Grammy nomination for Best Banda Album. She became the first American—born artist to be nominated for the award in 2003. Her 2003 release Homenaje a Las Grandes (in English “Homage to the Great Ones”) was a tribute album to female Mexican singers.

In 2004, she released her first compilation disc titled Simplemente… La Mejor, which became her first record to detonate a chart in the United States.

She began to attain more substantial success with the record Parrandera, Rebelde y Atrevida, released in 2005, which peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart, since its release it has been certified double-platinum in the Latin field by the Recording Industry Association of America. The second single released from the album, “De Contrabando” became her first and only number—one song to hit the Latin Regional Mexican Airplay in the United States. It is also said to be one of her most known songs.

In 2007, she released Mi Vida Loca, which debuted at number 1 on the Regional Mexican Albums chart and number 2 on the Top Latin Albums chart in the United States, the album garnered an award for Regional Mexican Album of the Year at the 2008 Latin Billboard Music Awards. In a 2011 interview with Billboard magazine she stated, “That was more of Jenni telling her story through music. My life has been so put out there by the media that I figured I might as well put it out there myself, in my own words and through my music. I wanted to clear up speculations about my private life.” The album also garnered Rivera her first Lo Nuestro Award for Regional Mexican Female Artist of the Year, an award she would dominate for the rest of her life. The same year she released La Diva en Vivo, a live album that consisted of songs recorded with a mariachi band, which garnered her, her second Latin Grammy nomination for Best Ranchero Album. That year she was the only female singer nominated in that category. The album was recorded at The Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City, California, Rivera sold out the concert which led her to become the first female banda singer to do so. Her tenth studio album, Jenni released in 2008, became her first No. 1 record on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart in the United States. The album led Rivera to win her second Lo Nuestro Award for Banda Artist of the Year, becoming the first female act to win the accolade. A feat that currently stands to date.

In June 2008, Univisión reported that Rivera was arrested after a concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, for allegedly hitting a fan. Media reports state the incident occurred after Rivera was hit on her right leg with a beer can that was thrown by someone in the crowd. Rivera made the culprit climb up on stage, and allegedly started assaulting him physically and verbally. After the altercation, the fan called the police, and Rivera was arrested after wrapping up the concert. Rivera was detained for a few hours, but released shortly after paying $3,000 bail.

In October 2008, a sex video featuring Rivera began circulating. Rivera was arrested on May 18, 2009 by customs authorities at the international airport in Mexico City. She failed to declare $52,467 cash in her purse. Rivera later paid a fine of $8,400 and was released. According to New York Daily News, Rivera worked as a performer for drug cartel parties in 2009.

In 2009, she changed course and recorded her first full mariachi studio album titled La Gran Señora, which garnered a Latin Grammy nomination for Best Ranchero Album, it peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart in the United States. In an interview Rivera said that releasing the album was very daring and marked her career in a positive way, she said she wanted to grow as an artist and the people that listen to banda will listen to mariachi if they find a good album that they feel is worth buying. She went on to say there are certain nationalities that will listen to mariachi and not banda. Those were the people that she was going after. She also stated, “Commercializing a ranchera album is much harder. There had not been a successful female mariachi artist in a long time. It was a big risk, but it was a risk that I was willing to take. La Gran Señora ended up being the biggest-selling [regional Mexican] album of 2010.”

She also became the first Latin artist to sell out the Nokia Theatre on July 9, 2009. The tour proved to be a success, La Gran Señora and La Gran Señora en Vivo both garnered Latin Grammy nominations in the Regional Mexican category and went platinum in Mexico and the United States.

In 2009, Rivera began work on her own tequila. Rivera partnered with 3 Crowns Distributors, planned, tasted, and approved the tequila from 2009 to 2012. The tequila was released in September 2013 as ‘Tequila La Gran Señora.’ In 2014, Tequila La Gran Señora won Best in Class for its versions in Blanco and Reposado. It also took a Tequila Añejo Gold award for its Añejo form. It took the award from Don Julio. Rivera’s Tequila has appeared in music videos from her daughter, Chiquis, to fellow celebrities such as Mario ‘El Cachorro’ Delgado, Snow The Product, and more.

In 2010, she announced she would be going on tour to promote her album latest album La Gran Señora. At the end of the tour, she released La Gran Señora en Vivo, a live album that consisted of hits in banda and mariachi, it debuted at No. 8 on the Top Latin Albums chart in the United States. She recorded the album and became the first artist to sell out two back-to-back nights at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, on August 6–7, 2010.

Rivera married baseball player Esteban Loaiza in 2010. They filed for divorce in 2012 just months before her death, but it was never finalized.

On August 6, 2010 Rivera was named spokeswoman for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. A proclamation was given “officially naming” August 6 “Jenni Rivera Day” by the Los Angeles City Council for all her charity work and community involvement. Rivera was a Christian and her brother Pedro Rivera Jr. is the pastor of the Primer Amor Church in Whittier, California.

At the onset of her musical career, she was told many times she would not make it. At that time and still today, the genre known as regional Mexican music was and is dominated by men. In a 2011 interview with Billboard magazine, she stated, “It was hard knocking on those doors to get my music played. One radio programmer in L.A., the meanest son of a bitch in the world, threw my CD in the trash right in my face.” Those were the kind of issues Rivera faced as a female trying to crack the regional Mexican genre. She then released the albums We are Rivera and Farewell to Selena independently, the latter a tribute album to Tejano music singer Selena who was murdered in 1995.

On August 23, 2011, she renewed her contract with Universal Music Latin Entertainment/Fonovisa Records.

Rivera was a producer on the Mun2 reality TV show Chiquis & Raq-C, featuring her oldest daughter Chiquis. She then appeared in the spin-off show I Love Jenni. Rivera worked as coach in the second season of the Mexican talent show La Voz… México, based upon The Voice franchise. In October 2012, People en Español named her one of the Top 25 most powerful women.

In December 2012, Rivera was only the third singer to place three albums on the entire top three on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart with her albums No.1 La Misma Gran Señora, No. 2 Joyas Prestadas: Pop, and No. 3 Joyas Prestadas: Banda. She joins two other leading singers, who also achieved the feat only in death Celia Cruz and Selena Quintanilla. In life and death, several media outlets including CNN, Billboard, Fox News, and The New York Times have labeled Rivera as the most important female figure and top selling female artist in the regional Mexican music genre.

Since her death in 2012, she has earned herself a spot on the Forbes Top Earning Dead Celebrities of 2013, making an estimate of 7 million dollars. Posthumously, Rivera has been awarded two Oye! Awards (Mexico’s equivalent to the Grammy awards). Posthumously, Billboard magazine named her the “Top Latin Artist of 2013”.

Rivera was buried on December 31, 2012, at All Souls Cemetery in Long Beach, California. Her father told Telemundo that legal issues had caused this delay. Her death made international headlines for weeks.

In 2012, Rivera was honored at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles with a spot on the ‘wall of fame’ for her continued support and donations to the hospital. After death, the foundation still continues to help women and children in need in need through refuge centers, fundraisers, and more.

By early 2013 Rivera had sold some 20 million albums worldwide. On December 11, 2012, two days after her death, Fonovisa Records released La Misma Gran Señora, the album debuted at No.1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, No.1 on Billboard Regional Mexican Albums chart and No.1 on Mexico’s Top 100 chart. Since its release, it has been awarded one Billboard Music Award, three Latin Billboard Music Awards, and two Mexican Billboard Music Awards. At the 2013 Billboard Music Awards it was awarded the Top Latin Album accolade.

On April 19, 2013, her debut film Filly Brown was released. Rivera played a drug addicted mother in prison. Oscar nominated actor Edward James Olmos, who served as executive producer on the film, called Rivera’s performance “Oscar-worthy.”

On July 2, 2013, Unbreakable/Inquebrantable, Rivera’s official autobiography arrived. Rivera had been working on it for years, and after her death her family put it together and turned it into a full book that became an instant New York Times bestseller. The total sales from Jenni Rivera’s autobiography’s different editions including (English and Spanish) made it the highest selling book in the United States the week of its release, Univision reported. Rivera’s family has released two parts of her last concert in Monterrey, titled 1969 – Siempre, En Vivo Desde Monterrey, Parte 1 and 1969 – Siempre, En Vivo Desde Monterrey, Parte 2, both albums have been commercially successful, in the United States and Mexico. Both albums peaked at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart, No. 1 on the Regional Mexican Albums chart, and No. 2 on Mexico’s Top 100 chart. Rivera was ranked in at number 1 on Billboard’s “Top 10 Regional Mexican Musicians 2009-2014” list.

On July 2, 2013, Rivera’s family released Unbreakable: My Story, My Way by Rivera. A New York Times bestseller, the Spanish language paperback sold over 9000 copies in its first week with the English language hardcover and paperback editions selling over 10,000 copies combined.

On May 12, 2013, The Grammy Museum opened up new exhibits dedicated to her. On display, were a broad array of items including: stage costumes worn by her, her personal bible, her driver’s license, credit cards, rare photographs of her both on and off stage, handwritten notes, award trophies, ticket stubs, concert posters, tour books, fan memorabilia, video footage from live performances and television appearances. A spokesman from The Grammy Museum told The Los Angeles Times that the exhibit had become one of the most popular attractions in the museum’s five-year history. The spokesman also stated that this was the very first exhibition that the museum has devoted entirely to a Latino or Latin American artist. The exhibit was closed on May 11, 2014.

Jenni Vive is an annual fundraiser and tribute concert hosted by the Jenni Rivera Love Foundation. The first Jenni Vive event was held on December 9, 2013 in Arena Monterrey. The same arena Rivera had sold-out in her last concert exactly a year before. Performers included Rivera’s family and friends, such as, Larry Hernandez, Tito El Bambino, Diana Reyes and La Original Banda Limon. The second event was held on July 2, 2015 in Long Beach, California. Performers included the singer’s daughters, Chiquis and Jacqie, Latin pop artist Becky G, Banda Los Recoditos, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, Los Horóscopos de Durango, and Regulo Caro. All earnings from Jenni Vive events go to the Jenni Rivera Love Foundation.

On July 1, 2014 Rivera’s album 1969 – Siempre, En Vivo Desde Monterrey, Parte 2 went on sale and sold over 10,000 in the week ending July 6, according to Nielsen SoundSCan. Since the album’s release, Rivera has tied with Selena Quintanilla for most no. 1s by a female on the Regional Mexican Albums chart. Billboard magazine named Rivera the highest-ranked woman on the year-end Top Latin Artists chart of 2014, ranking at No. 5. The next-highest female artist is Shakira, at No. 32.

In late 2014, controversy and accusations continued to surround the circumstances of her death. Her widower, Esteban Loaiza, has sued Starwood for wrongful death. A request by his attorneys to dismiss the case was granted in late October, court records show. Loiaza’s suit contended the pilots flying Rivera.

Rivera’s estate have launched a copyright lawsuit against her former manager Laura Lucio. The plaintiffs are asking a judge to instruct law enforcement officials to confiscate Rivera’s writings and interviews from Lucio so she cannot use them for a book project. In January 2014, Lucio filed a lawsuit claiming Rivera’s estate published a biography of Rivera using the writings and interviews that she helped put together before Rivera passed. Lucio alleged her book project, Mi Vida Loca, which she claimed to have written with Rivera, was shelved following Rivera’s death but was later published under a new title, Unbreakable: My Story, My Way, without her permission. Rivera’s estate subsequently had the lawsuit moved out of a state court and into federal court, but in September 2014, U.S. District Judge George Wu granted Lucio’s request to have the case moved back to state court. She then published the materials and Rivera’s estate are now claiming they are the rightful owners of them. The lawsuit reads, “Defendant even falsely listed herself as the author of these copyrighted works, created by Jenni Rivera and/or owned by Jenni Rivera Enterprises, in a registration of a manuscript titled Jenni Rivera, Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life) as told to Laura Lucio; with the Writer’s Guild of America’s Intellectual Property Registry. Rivera’s Estate and Lucio settled the case out of court in September 2015. The terms of the settlement are confidential.

On December 9, 2014, the estate of Rivera sued the owners of the plane that was carrying her. The negligence case is against Starwood Management Inc., which owned the Learjet 25 jet that crashed in northern Mexico, after plunging more than 28,000 feet. The case is also against the companies that serviced the aircraft, Bombardier Inc. and Learjet Inc. Rivera’s parents and five of her children, two of whom are still minors, are plaintiffs in the case. The suit seeks unspecified damages on their behalf. Rivera’s estate has also been sued along with Starwood by relatives of those killed in the crash, including her attorney, hairstylist, publicist and makeup artist and one of the plane’s pilots.

The investigation by the Mexican authorities, assisted by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, was closed in December 2014, without being able to determine the cause of the accident. The aircraft had completely disintegrated after hitting the ground in a nosedive at extremely high speed, and both flight recorders were destroyed in the impact. The probable cause was stated as “loss of control of the aircraft for undetermined reasons.”

On October 8, 2014, Long Beach, California Councilman Dee Andrews pushed to name a park in memorial of Rivera. Andrews proposed to name a public right of way park in central Long Beach at Walnut Avenue and 20th Street the “Jenni Rivera Memorial Park.” The request was heard at the following City Council’s meeting. The agenda item was cosponsored by Councilwoman Suzie Price and Councilman Roberto Uranga. Councilman Andrews said, “Jenni was an inspiration to us all. By honoring Jenni Rivera with a Memorial Park, the City of Long Beach will be paying tribute to a great citizen of our city who was a remarkable entertainer, inspirational leader and an amazing ambassador of all of Long Beach.” Andrews’ office released a written statement from the Rivera family in regard to the park name proposal stating. “We are honored and humbled to have a great community asset named after our mother, daughter and sister in the greatest City of the world. Jenni always considered herself a chic from Long Beach with pride, no matter how many millions of albums she sold. She always knew she’d return to her hometown, but this exceeded her dreams. We are forever grateful.”

On October 17, 2014 The Long Beach City Council voted 8–0 in favor of moving forward with 6th District Councilmember Dee Andrews’s item requesting the Council consider naming a park in the 6th District in honor of Rivera.

At the 2015 Billboard Latin Music Awards Rivera was awarded: Top Latin Albums Female Artist of the Year and Regional Mexican Artist of the Year.

On July 2, 2016, Long Beach city official hosted a grand opening ceremony of the park. The ceremony featured a 125-foot-long (38 m) mural of Rivera.

In May 2016, The Jenni Rivera Love Foundation, in partnership with New Life Beginnings, opened ‘Jenni’s Refuge’. A women and children’s refuge center in Long Beach, California. The refuge center is dedicated to helping abused women and children that have gone through domestic violence, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. ‘Jenni’s Refuge’ was built with earnings from ‘Jenni Vive 2015.’

In July 2016, at Noche de La Gran Señora, an event celebrating Rivera’s birthday, Rivera’s family presented a new bottle of Tequila La Gran Señora. The bottle was approved by Rivera herself. The new bottle is expected to go on sale in late 2016.

In November 2018, Jenni Rivera Enterprises signed a music distribution deal with Sony Music Entertainment (through its Sony Music Latin and The Orchard labels).