Where is Rebecca Lee Meza Since Her Role As Young Selena Quintanilla?

Rebecca Lee Meza – born in 1987 is 37 years old.

After Rebecca Lee Meza played the starring role in the popular biopic Selena, she won the viewing public over with her performance as Selena Quintanilla, the queen of Tejano music who died in her prime. Meza’s prowess on set had so many young girls all over the world mimicking her in front of their mirrors. There is no better way to describe her performance than to say she shined in the role, besides, the movie was a commercial success, grossing over 35 million dollars at the box office. It also triggered rave reviews from critics and fans alike.

After her success on the set of Selena, Meza played around the showbiz scene for a short while before completely dropping off the radar and for over two decades after the release of the biopic, fans have been wondering what became of the former juvenile actor. Investigations have shown that Meza did not move an inch from Texas as she is still a resident, the promising actress just decided to trade her dreams of hitting it big in the entertainment world for family life. These days, Meza prefers to live the quiet life of a businesswoman with a floral and bridal shop to her name. Playing the role of Selena in the biopic undoubtedly helped in preserving the late singer’s memory and served as a defining moment of the child actress’s childhood, as well as career.

Meza was just nine when she played the role of young Selena Quintanilla

When she was featured in the biopic to depict the character of young Selena Quintanilla, Meza had just turned nine. The Latino was a Texas resident at the time (and still is) and was totally devastated upon hearing the news of the singer’s demise on March 31, 1995. In 2007, Meza told the Valley Morning Star how that day turned out to be the worst day of her life. She initially waved it aside as an early April Fool’s Day joke of the worst kind. Meza said Selena was the first person known to her who died.

Meza told a tale of her younger days as a student, schooling with all ” blue-eyed and blond-haired ” girls, and felt in her heart like that is exactly what she needed to be. This was her mindset until she started to admire Selena, seeing the youngster as someone to always look up to, someone very close to her in resemblance. Back then, there weren’t plenty of role models for little girls like Rebecca Lee Meza.

Eventually, when they heard about the Selena movie casting taking place in Houston, Meza and her parents began taking her to auditions for Selena’s look-alike contests. It took a few auditions for Rebecca to beat the other 20,000 contenders and went ahead to score the role. The movie was released in March 1997, two years after the late star was murdered. It also grossed $35.5 million at the box office and won many awards as well.

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Rebecca Lee Meza received death threats after her role in Selena

Following the completion of her role as young Selena Quintanilla in the biopic entitled Selena, Rebecca Lee Meza said her life was never the same again. A lot of people, both adults and children hated her and she received some death threats for her life. Thus it became very hard to return to her normal life.

According to what Meza said to Tejano Nation in a March 2017 interview, she believed that God had other plans in store for her and that she was meant to experience the filming of the biopic and the ensuing short-lived fame. These she said was designed to humble her and expose her to a plethora of things that she would have probably been ignorant of.

She ventured into music and business and never acted again

Meanwhile, she didn’t leave the entertainment scene immediately after Selena. Having dubbed her singing voice in the movie, Rebecca continued her venture into the showbiz arena, recording a couple of albums of her own for other children. After she wrapped up her high school education, the juvenile artist later took the decision to relocate to Austin in pursuit of a career as a musician; however, things didn’t work out as planned.

When her plans to continue in the world of showbiz came to naught, Rebecca Lee Meza decided to go into business, launching Rebecca Lee’s Flowers and Bridal Boutique. The shop is said to be festooned with Selena memorabilia, as well as pictures she took with her costars. The 17th to 18th of April 2015 marked the debut annual Fiesta De la Flor – a two-day festival celebrated in memory of the life of Selena, “Queen of Tejano.” Meza was present at the Fiesta event hosted in Corpus Christi, Texas.

During the festival, Rebecca spent the entire weekend there, where she met with fans and interacted with the media. She was interviewed by KIII TV in South Texas whose staff was present at the event and were starstruck to speak with the former child star. Meza also spent some time as a social worker before settling down to business. Since her days on the set of Selena, Rebecca has not made another appearance on the entertainment scene.

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Rebecca Lee Meza has since settled down into family life

From what is obvious, Meza is the type of celebrity who loves to keep the details of their personal life under lock and key, thus, we don’t know much about that aspect of her life. However, it is public knowledge that the Texan has long given up spinsterhood to embrace matrimony, though her husband’s identity still remains a mystery.

We also know that she has four children, but their names and gender are not known. With her family, the former actress re-dedicated her life to God and still remains an ardent follower of the Christian faith to date. It seems that she has never left Texas as the mother of five is still residing there where she does her best as a fan of Quintanilla, honoring the late vocalist’s legacy along the way. Rebecca Lee Meza has been quite instrumental in keeping the artist’s memory alive. She now goes by the name Becky Burden, Meza, living a quiet life in Harlingen, Texas. In August 2016, the former actress launched her own video blog in a bid to keep fans and the general public updated on the goings-on in her life.