Miguel Ángel Fox, renowned television producer, recently shared moving and previously little-known details about the tragic day Jenni Rivera died in a plane crash. Fox, who was serving as a producer for “La Voz México” at the time of the incident, revealed that he was one of the first to hear the news, which he initially believed was a joke in very poor taste.
“Honestly, something like this had never happened to me before. I thought the person who called me and told me, I was having breakfast, I thought it was a joke,” Fox recounted about the moment he received the shocking call. The voice on the other end of the line informed him: “Well, Jenni’s plane left Monterrey and disappeared from radar.”
According to his own words, it was approximately eight in the morning on a fateful Sunday, the same day the program was scheduled to air on Mexican television. Disbelief gripped him: “I hung up and said, ‘Planes don’t disappear from radar.'”
The gravity of the situation became undeniable when a second call confirmed the unthinkable. “The lady in the control tower explained to me again (what happened), and I said, ‘Are you 100 percent sure the plane crashed?’ And she said, ‘Yes,’ and burst into tears,” Fox recounted, highlighting the magnitude of the tragedy, even for those handling the information. At that time, information about the accident was not yet public knowledge; the disappearance from radar was a detail few knew.
The news prompted a radical change in the production of “La Voz México”: “Almost around six in the evening, the program changed, because now it’s a program of mourning,” the producer explained. The atmosphere on the set turned somber; the coaches themselves were reluctant to participate, mired in shock. “These productions become a family; everyone was in shock,” Fox commented, reflecting the emotional impact Rivera’s death had on the entire crew.
Despite the grief, the show had to go on. The most heartbreaking image, according to Fox, was Jenni Rivera’s chair on set. “On Jenni’s chair, there was nothing but a white rose,” she sadly recalled. The appearance of her brother, Lupillo Rivera, who “helped us a little,” added an even more emotional tone to the broadcast.
