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Becky G was visibly emotional as she premiered her deeply personal and powerful documentary Rebbeca on Friday at the Tribeca Festival. The film, which explores themes of forgiveness, family, and cultural pride, uses the singer’s headlining Mi Casa, Tu Casa tour as the backdrop and dives into the singer’s origin story, featuring interviews with her parents and never-before-seen images from her childhood.
“Rebbeca symbolizes resilience, the kind that shows up quietly in our families, our culture, our growth,” Becky tells Rolling Stone. “This film gave me the space to show up not just as Becky G, but Rebbeca. It’s about identity, healing, forgiveness, and honoring the people and places that made me.”
The film looks at the singer’s ascent to success from her youth, fighting to break through as a rapper thanks to a cover of Jay Z and Kanye West’s “Otis” in 2011. From there, she found success as a pop star with “Shower” and kept her career flourishing with a deep embrace of Mexican music in recent years. In the documentary, Becky opens up about navigating public scrutiny, and forgiveness amid her relationship with Sebastian Lletget. The film also touches on the impact immigration has had on her family.
On Friday, following the film, she spoke with the documentary directors Jennifer Tiexiera and Gabriela Cavanagh about how the ICE raids affecting her native Los Angeles have impacted.
“My grandfather’s immigration story is a big part of that, and sharing this now, at a time when so many in our community are being targeted, feels even more urgent,” she says. “This isn’t about having it all figured out. It’s about holding space for who we’ve been, who we are, and who we’re still becoming.”
Cavanagh and Tiexiera tell Rolling Stone that they “could never have imagined” premiering the film while “our very state of being is under attack,” but it’s made the film all the more powerful.
“This is what this administration is targeting,” they tell Rolling Stone in a statement. “This film is a love letter to our community — a visual representation of what is at stake right now, and a portrait of those affected most by these atrocities.”
From her relationship with her father to her Latina roots, here are three takeaways from Rebbeca.
She wasn’t afraid of being seen as a “pocha” while making Esquinas
Much of the film highlights Becky G’s creative process while making her música mexicana album Esquinas. It captures how important it was for her to celebrate her roots as a Mexican American woman, or as a “200-percenter,” as she’s described it.
“It’s like I can close my eyes and see the little me,” she says in the documentary as clips show her listening to Mexican music alongside her grandfather, who immigrated from Mexico to Southern California to give her family a better future. “When I lost him, that was the catalyst for this project.”
Becky delves into the judgment she faced early in her career for not speaking perfectly in Spanish, but she still decided to cover songs by Selena and represent her Mexican American identity. With Esquinas, “I faced my biggest fear of being judged… of being seen as pocha,” she says.
Becky opens up about being a child star and dealing with panic attacks
Rebbeca features never-before-seen moments from Becky G’s early performances, including a talent show at CityWalk where she sang a Cheetah Girls song. “I was born for this,” she says, reflecting on the moment.
In interviews, Becky’s mom, Alex, recalls her daughter’s determination even as a kid. She was so committed to her dream that she drafted a contract for her parents to sign, promising they’d let her audition and perform as long as she kept up with her chores.
A throughline for Rebbeca is Becky G’s intentional focus on keeping her mental health in check, as she’s captured doing breathing exercises backstage and on her tour bus as she embarks on her Mi Casa, Tu Casa tour.
However, it also delves into how deeply panic attacks affected her early in her life. “I couldn’t go at least a day without one,” she says in the doc, as clips play of Becky struggling to breathe. The film jumps between scenes of Becky as a child grappling with her mental health struggles and how she’s able to center herself today.
Becky finds forgiveness for her father amid his addiction struggles
The most powerful storyline in the film is Becky G and her entire family grappling with the effects of her father’s addiction struggles, which worsened behind the scenes over the years. Becky and her mother recount how tough it was with tears streaming from their eyes. Becky describes it as her “first heartbreak.”
The documentary features candid present-day interviews with Becky’s father, Francisco Gomez. The family also speaks openly about Francisco’s infidelity — and how it impacted Becky and her mother, whose own addiction, she says, was “being with [him].”
“You left these shoes empty, and now I have to be the man of the house?” Becky asks in one of the film’s most heart-wrenching moments.
