Long before she was lighting up the big screen, Salma Hayek was lighting up her parents’ lives.The Frida actress, born Salma Hayek Jiménez, was raised in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, by her father, Lebanese businessman Sami Hayek Dominiguez, and her mother, Spanish opera singer Diana Jiminénz Medina.
Salma opened up about her mother’s craft to the OWN network in 2007. “I love my mom because she loves to sing and she has the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard,” she said, adding, “She sings like an angel.”
As for her father, Salma has said that he is her biggest supporter. After breaking the news to him that she was dropping out of college to focus on acting, the Fools Rush In star said that Sami “went crazy” initially. Eventually, he got on board, however. “He said, ‘Okay, okay. We're gonna do the acting classes.’ And I never went back to college,” she remembered to CBS News in 2018. “And he's so proud of me. Nobody's more proud than him.”
Sami and Diana share two children. Salma came first, arriving on Sept. 2, 1966. She was followed by a younger brother, Sami Hayek.
“I was privileged to grow up in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, with my parents and my younger brother, Sami,” Salma told The Guardian in 2013. “It was a close community, we lived near the ocean and we would be outside all the time with the neighbors' kids, running free, playing football on the streets and at the beach.”
The Oscar-nominated actress shared a tribute to her younger brother, a successful furniture designer, on social media in April for World Siblings Day, writing, “Sami you’ve been a blessing in my life… even though I’m sure I decorate yours with chaos.”
As a child, Salma thought her father was a “king”
Salma discussed her upbringing in the 2015 biography Salma Hayek: Actress, Director and Producer by Kerrily Sapet. "I thought I was a princess,” she said in the book.
More than just being surrounded by the finer things in life, however, Salma said that she saw her father as royalty growing up. “I lived in a castle, and my father was a king,” she said. “I wore tiaras. I was born diva-ish.”
Per the Salma told the New York Post that Sami even allowed Salma and her brother to keep a pet tiger named Rambo in the house.
Diana “embarrassed” Salma with her singing
As an opera singer, Salma’s mother was constantly singing. “Many times, it embarrassed me, but my mother taught me that whenever she felt like singing, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought —including me,” the Across the Universe star told OWN in 2007. “She was just gonna sing and feel free with her voice.”
The entrepreneur elaborated in a 2014 interview, saying, “My friends would come to the house, and she’d be like, *makes operatic sounds.” And you would ask her, ‘Can I go to the movies?’ and she’d answer singing, in front of your friends. So that was embarrassing.”
Salma said her mom would also showcase her talents in public. “Somebody would ask, ‘Oh, why don’t you sing?’ … and she’d just like, sing a song in a restaurant or something — but really loud. She’s an opera singer, so it’s not, like, intimate, it would be the whole restaurant would be clapping, standing up, ovation and stuff. And when you are a teenager, that can be embarrassing. Now, I appreciate it, but back then, it was embarrassing.”
As an adult, the activist, Salma told OWN that she now sees her mom differently. “I love her for being brave and for having such an important voice in my life,” she said.
Sami once ran for mayor
While Diana flexed her artistic muscles, Sami focused on business, working as an executive in the oil industry, and later, politics. The New York Times reported on Sept. 17, 1997, that he was running for mayor of the Mexican city in which Salma was born — Coatzacoalcos — as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
Diana always knew Salma would be successful
During a 2017 mother-daughter cover shoot Salma and Diana did together for HOLA! USA, Salma’s mom told the publicationthat while she wasn’t surprised her oldest child turned out to be successful at her craft, she is still amazed by her. "I always knew that Salmita would be something big in her life because of her personality, her way of always working for what she wants, but she surprises me — because Salma is unstoppable," Diana said, per E! News. "She continues to surprise me more and more.”
Diana also opened up about her hopes for her daughter, saying, “There was one thing that I wanted: That was for Salma to be free to grow up and do whatever she wanted."
Sami prevented Salma from becoming an Olympian
While she’s a successful actress and filmmaker today, Salma could have had a very different career path had she been born to somebody else. “At [9], I got drafted for the Olympic [gymnastics] team,” she revealed in a 2014 interview for LIVE with Kelly and Mark. “I was so focused and so good.”
Olympic gold wasn’t in the cards, however. “My father refused to allow me to go to a boarding school at 9 years old in another city where I was to be exercising six hours a day,” Salma reportedly told OK Magazine per Olympics.com. "He said, 'I didn't want you not to have a childhood.' "
Though Sami’s decision affected his relationship with his daughter at the time ("I resented my father," she told the outlet), it worked out for the best. "Now, I'm so glad I didn't take that road because I really like my life,” she shared.
Salma’s parents opened up a music school in Mexico
Like Salma, Sami and Diana are activists, working to bring the gift of music to those less fortunate than themselves. “My mother was devoted to helping people — with my father's money! —who had great voices but didn't have the financial means to study music,” Salma told The Guardian in 2013. “He and my mum gave away dozens of music scholarships.”
Diana even launched a music school to share her craft with the community. “My mum opened a school in town, introduced opera to children and created fantastic programs,” Salma shared. “With my father's help, she brought in teachers from Mexico City. They would train anybody who had a good voice, and several of her students are now working as professional singers.”
Sami and Salma traveled to Lebanon together
Ahead of making her 2014 animated film Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, Salma, whose mother is Spanish and father is Lebanese, made a pilgrimage to her paternal grandfather’s village in Baabdat with her father, calling the trip an “emotional journey.”
"Through this book I got to know my grandfather, through this book I got to have my grandfather teaching me about life," the Mexican-Arab actress said at the film’s launch per Reuters. "Between all the connections of our ancestors and the memories of the ones that are no longer with us, I hope they are proud of this film because I did it also for them," she said.
Salma previously spoke about her Lebanese heritage, telling Arab News in November 2021, “I was raised and I was educated, like all Lebanese people are educated, to give back to Lebanon, to be a brotherhood. We are raised so that when we encounter a Lebanese person in life, we immediately come together.” She added: “I probably had Kibbeh before I had tacos.”
She also paid tribute to her Lebanese roots with an Instagram tribute to Sami on his 82nd birthday in November 2019. “Thank you for those Lebanese genes,” she wrote at the time.
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