Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Affleck[1] (née Lopez; born July 24, 1969[2]), also known by her nickname J.Lo, is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Often dubbed the "Queen of Dance", Lopez is regarded as one of the most influential entertainers of her time,[3] credited with breaking barriers for Latino Americans in Hollywood and helping propel the Latin pop movement in music. She is also noted for her impact on popular culture through fashion, branding, and shifting mainstream beauty standards.
For other uses, see Jennifer Lopez (disambiguation).
Jennifer Lopez
- J.Lo
- Jennifer Affleck
- Singer
- songwriter
- actress
- dancer
- businesswoman
1986–present
-
Ojani Noa(m. 1997; div. 1998)
2
Lynda Lopez (sister)
Vocals
Lopez began her career as a dancer, making her television debut as a Fly Girl on the sketch comedy series In Living Color in 1991. She later rose to prominence as an actress, with leading roles in the films Selena (1997), Anaconda (1997) and Out of Sight (1998) establishing her as the highest-paid Latin actress. She successfully ventured into the music industry with her debut album On the 6 (1999). In 2001, she became the first woman to simultaneously have the number one album and film in the United States with her second album J.Lo and romantic comedy The Wedding Planner. She has since become known for starring in romantic comedies, including Maid in Manhattan (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), and Monster-in-Law (2005). Lopez released two albums in 2002: J to tha L–O! The Remixes and This Is Me... Then, the former becoming the first remix album to top the US Billboard 200.
Media scrutiny and the failure of her film Gigli (2003) preceded a career downturn. Her subsequent albums included Rebirth (2005) and Como Ama una Mujer (2007); the latter broke first-week sales records for a debut Spanish album. In 2011, Lopez returned to prominence as a judge on American Idol and released the album Love?. In the latter 2010s, she performed a concert residency, starred in the police drama series Shades of Blue (2016–2018), served as a judge on World of Dance (2017–2020), and garnered critical praise for her performance in the crime drama Hustlers (2019). She has since starred in the films Marry Me (2022), The Mother (2023) and This Is Me... Now: A Love Story (2024).
With over 80 million records sold, Lopez's most successful singles include: "If You Had My Love", "Waiting for Tonight", "Let's Get Loud", "Love Don't Cost a Thing", "I'm Real", "Ain't It Funny", "Jenny from the Block", "All I Have", "Get Right", and "On the Floor".[4][5] Her accolades include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Billboard Icon Award and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. She has been ranked among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time and the World's 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes. Her other ventures include a lifestyle brand, beauty and fashion lines, fragrances, a production company and a charitable foundation.
Early life
Jennifer Lynn López was born on July 24, 1969, in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, and raised in its Castle Hill neighborhood.[6][7][8] Her parents, David López and Guadalupe Rodríguez, were born in Puerto Rico and met in New York City.[9][10] After serving in the army, David worked as a computer technician at Guardian Insurance Company.[11] Guadalupe was a homemaker for the first ten years of López's life and later worked as a Tupperware salesperson[12] and a kindergarten and gym teacher.[13] They divorced in the 1990s after 33 years of marriage.[12]
Lopez is a middle child; she has an older sister, Leslie, and a younger sister, Lynda.[14] The three shared a bedroom.[15] Lopez has described her upbringing as "strict".[16] She was raised in a Roman Catholic family; she attended Mass every Sunday and received a Catholic education, attending Holy Family School and the all-girls Preston High School.[17] In school, Lopez ran track on a national level, participated in gymnastics and was on the softball team.[18] She danced in school musicals and played a lead role in a production of Godspell.[19] She described herself as a "tomboy" and "very athletic".[20]
There was "lots of music" in the typically Puerto Rican household,[21] and Lopez and her sisters were encouraged to sing, dance and create their own plays for family events.[22][23] West Side Story made a particular impression on the young Lopez, who wanted to be an entertainer from an early age.[17] As a teenager, she learned flamenco, jazz and ballet at the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club[17] and taught dance to younger students, including Kerry Washington.[24] After graduating from high school, she had a part-time secretarial job at a law firm and studied business at New York's Baruch College for one semester.[25][26] At age 18, she enrolled as a full-time student at Manhattan's Phil Black Dance Studio, where she had already taken night classes in jazz and tap dance.[16][15][17] Her parents were unhappy with her decision to leave college to pursue a dance career. According to Lopez, her parents felt it was "foolish" because "no Latinas did that".[19] Her mother asked her to move out of the family home and they stopped speaking for eight months.[22][27] Lopez moved to Manhattan, sleeping in the dance studio's office for the first few months.[16][15][17]
Career
1989–1996: Professional dancing and early acting roles
Lopez's first professional job came in 1989 when she spent five months touring Europe with the musical revue show Golden Musicals of Broadway. She was upset at being the only member of the chorus not to have a solo, and later characterized it as a pivotal moment where she had to "try harder and become that much more committed".[28][29] In 1990, she danced alongside MC Hammer in an episode of Yo! MTV Raps,[30] and traveled around Japan for four months as a chorus member in Synchronicity.[17] When she returned to the United States, she was hired as a backup dancer for New Kids on the Block's performance of "Games" at the 1991 American Music Awards.[31] She also traveled around America with regional productions of the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Oklahoma!.[32] During this period, Lopez also danced in music videos including Doug E. Fresh's "Summertime", Richard Rogers' "Can't Stop Loving You", EPMD's "Rampage",[33] and Samantha Fox's "(Hurt Me! Hurt Me!) But the Pants Stay On".[34] Lopez stated: "I'd dance in a piece-of-garbage rap or pop video for 50 bucks and make the money last a whole month."[35]
Her most high-profile job as a professional dancer was as a Fly Girl jazz-funk dancer on the sketch comedy television series In Living Color. The show's choreographer, Rosie Perez said she chose Lopez because "she had that look that I knew the audience would tune in to".[36] Lopez moved to Los Angeles in late 1991 for the job; she filmed In Living Color during the day and attended acting classes taught by Aaron Speiser at night.[17] Lopez felt ostracized by the other Fly Girls because of her "voluptuous figure", and also clashed with Perez.[36] The head of Virgin Records considered signing The Fly Girls as a girl group to rival the Spice Girls, but the deal fell apart.[29] After appearing as a Fly Girl in seasons three and four of In Living Color, Lopez left to work as a backup dancer for Janet Jackson, and appeared in the music video for "That's the Way Love Goes".[29] She was scheduled to tour with Jackson on her Janet World Tour in late 1993 but opted to pursue an acting career instead.[37] Lopez hired In Living Color producer Eric Gold as her manager. He advised Lopez to lose weight if she wanted to succeed as an actress.[38]
Lopez's first professional acting job was a small recurring role on the television show South Central (1994). She was invited to audition for the pilot by a casting director who had seen her speak to camera during a behind-the-scenes In Living Color segment.[17] She then acquired an agent and was cast in the CBS show Second Chances; the series was quickly cancelled, but her popularity with viewers led to her being cast in its spin-off Hotel Malibu.[39] She subsequently appeared in the television film Lost in the Wild (1993).[40] For her first major movie role, in Gregory Nava's 1995 drama Mi Familia, Lopez received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress.[41] She then starred in the action comedy Money Train (1995). The film was not a box office success, though her performance was reviewed positively,[42] which led to her being further noticed in Hollywood.[43] In 1996, Lopez had a supporting role opposite Robin Williams in the comedy Jack, which director Francis Ford Coppola cast her in after seeing her performance in Mi Familia.[42] She next starred opposite Jack Nicholson in the neo-noir thriller Blood and Wine (1996), where David Rooney of Variety felt she delivered in "juggling" the "smoldering and soulful sides" of the character.[44]
1997–1999: Breakthrough with Selena and On the 6
With her casting as the singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in the biopic Selena (1997), Lopez became the first Latina actress to earn $1 million. She described her salary for the film as a "statement to the world",[45] but expressed disappointment that other Latina actors were not being afforded the same opportunities.[46] Despite having previously worked with the film's director Gregory Nava on Mi Familia, Lopez participated in an intense auditioning process and spent time with the late singer's family in Corpus Christi, Texas before filming began.[47][48] Selena was a box office hit, and Lopez's performance received critical acclaim.[49][50] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described it as "a star-making performance" and wrote: "She has the star presence to look convincing in front of 100,000 fans."[51] Lopez received her first Golden Globe nomination for the performance. Nava asked the heads of Warner Bros. to fund an Academy Award campaign for Lopez but was told the Academy would "never nominate a Latina."[52] Later in 1997, Lopez starred opposite Ice Cube in the horror film Anaconda, which received negative reviews from critics but was a box office success.[53] Joe Leydon of Variety found the film "silly" but said it deserved "a little credit" for being "the first movie of its kind to have a Latina and an African-American" as its stars.[54] In the crime film U Turn (1997),[55] Lopez appeared topless in a sex scene that was added by director Oliver Stone during filming. Speaking in 2003, Lopez said it was not something "I would have chosen to do" and that she and Stone fought over it: "It's hard being the only woman on a set."[17]
Lopez starred opposite George Clooney in the crime caper Out of Sight (1998), Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name.[56] Cast as a deputy federal marshal who falls for a charming criminal, she won rave reviews for her performance.[57][58] Janet Maslin of The New York Times described it as her "best movie role thus far, and she brings it both seductiveness and grit; if it was hard to imagine a hard-working, pistol-packing bombshell on the page, it couldn't be easier here."[59] Turan of the Los Angeles Times described Lopez as "an actress who can be convincingly tough and devastatingly erotic" and said the film solidified "her position as a woman you can confidently build a film around."[60] In 2021, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian named Lopez and Clooney's partnership as one of the best examples of on-screen chemistry in cinema history.[61] Also in 1998, Lopez provided the voice of Azteca in the animated film Antz,[57] and ventured into product endorsement, becoming a national spokesperson for Coca-Cola and L'Oréal.[62][63]
Lopez decided to pursue a music career after working on Selena, realizing that she had missed "the excitement of the stage".[29] Her new manager Benny Medina sought to position her as "a brand name that will cross over into all media."[29] Lopez, who was "really feeling [her] Latin roots",[64] recorded a Spanish-language demo for circulation among prospective labels. With Lopez being a high-profile personality, a bidding war ensued.[65] Tommy Mottola, the head of Sony Music's Work Group, signed her but suggested that she sing in English instead.[66] Her record deal with Sony was described as "lucrative", having outbid other offers from Capitol Records and EMI Latin.[67] While Lopez worked on her debut album, Sony "began a major push" to feature her with other high-profile entertainers, leading her to appear in the Sean Combs music video "Been Around the World" (1997).[65]
Her debut album On the 6 (1999), named after the 6 Subway line which connected her childhood home in the Bronx to Manhattan,[68] was met with positive reviews and further propelled her public profile.[69][4] The album was a success and Lopez's debut single, "If You Had My Love", topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks,[4] with another single, "Waiting for Tonight", reaching number eight and becoming a celebratory anthem for the new millennium.[70] Other singles from the album included "Let's Get Loud", which became one of Lopez's signature songs, and "No Me Ames", a duet with future husband Marc Anthony.[4] In July 1999, she performed "If You Had My Love" and "Let's Get Loud" at the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup closing ceremony. It was watched by over one billion viewers worldwide, exposing Lopez's music career to a larger international audience.[71]
2000–2002: International success
In February 2000, Lopez and then-boyfriend Sean Combs attended the Grammy Awards, with Lopez wearing a plunging green Versace silk chiffon dress.[72] The dress generated worldwide attention and became the most popular search query in Google's history, leading to the creation of Google Images,[73] while boosting Lopez's album and movie ticket sales.[74] Later that year, Lopez starred in the psychological thriller The Cell, for which she received a $4 million salary.[69] The film, where Lopez played a psychologist who uses radical experimental therapy to enter the mind of a killer, received mixed reviews but was a box office success.[75]
Lopez became the first woman to have a number one film and album simultaneously in January 2001, with the release of her sophomore album J.Lo and her romantic comedy The Wedding Planner, which co-stars Matthew McConaughey.[76] The Wedding Planner received highly negative reviews but became a box office success.[77] Jessica Winter of The Village Voice found Lopez miscast as a "buttoned down, celibate" woman in the film.[78] Lopez titled her album J.Lo after the nickname which her fans and the media had been increasingly referring to her as. She also adopted J.Lo as her stagename.[79] J.Lo received polarized reviews from critics but became the most successful album of her career, selling 12 million copies worldwide.[80] It included the singles "Love Don't Cost a Thing", which reached number one in various countries,[4] "I'm Real" featuring Ja Rule, which peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100,[81] "Ain't It Funny", and "Play". In support of the album, Lopez performed two-concert residency in Puerto Rico, which was later broadcast in November 2001 as an NBC special, Jennifer Lopez in Concert. It was one of the most-watched concert specials of the year in the United States, with an audience of almost 12 million.[82]
In other 2001 work, Lopez launched her first business venture, the clothing line J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez. The line catered to women of all sizes, as Lopez felt "the voluptuous woman [was] almost ignored" in the fashion industry.[79] She also founded her production company, Nuyorican Productions, with manager Benny Medina. Her next film was the romantic drama Angel Eyes, starring opposite Jim Caviezel.[83] Lopez's performance was well-reviewed,[84][85] though the film was a critical and commercial disappointment.[86] She was slated to star alongside Ricky Martin in a remake of Elvis Presley's Viva Las Vegas, but this did not eventuate.[87]
Artistry
Influences
Lopez has cited Madonna as her "first big musical influence", explaining "It was all about Madonna for me. She inspired me to want to sing, to dance, to work hard."[344][345] Her other major influences include Tina Turner, James Brown, and Michael Jackson.[346] Another major influence on Lopez is Barbra Streisand, stating that, "watching her career over the years, watching her sing and act and direct, was very inspiring to me."[198] Lopez has cited Janet Jackson as a major inspiration for her own dance and videos, stating that she "probably started dancing" because of Jackson's music video for "The Pleasure Principle".[347][348] She also looked to the careers of Cher, Bette Middler and Diana Ross,[69] and has been inspired by younger artists such as Lady Gaga.[349]
Growing up, she was influenced by Latin music styles ranging from salsa to bachata, and artists including Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. However, it was the hip hop song "Rapper's Delight" (1979) by The Sugarhill Gang that she said changed her life.[350] Another key inspiration for Lopez in her youth was Puerto Rican actress Rita Moreno's performance in the musical film West Side Story (1961). Moreno was the only performer Lopez was able to identify with, at a time when Latinos were rarely on television.[351]
Musical style
Musically, Lopez is described as a "chameleon" by outlets like Variety and Forbes, having been known to experiment and jump between genres.[114][352][182][354] Her music strongly identifies with hip hop while exploring the "romantic innocence" of Latin music.[355] Billboard observed that she has "never been one to downplay her Latinidad, and always makes sure to display it" in her music, "regardless of genre".[352] On the 6 and J.Lo, described by Lopez as Latin soul, fuse a wide range of Latin genres with R&B and hip hop, while also containing dance-pop.[352][356][29] While mostly English, the albums include some Spanish and bilingual songs such as "Cariño",[357] with Lopez also speaking in Spanish and asserting her Latin identity on songs like "Let's Get Loud".[358][359] A departure from her previous work, This Is Me... Then blends 1970s soul with "streetwise" hip hop.[90] Rebirth was noted for its "relaxing" atmosphere, while Como Ama una Mujer was characterized as "silkily Spanish Sade worship".[114]
Described as autobiographical,[360] much of Lopez's music has centered around the "ups and downs" of love.[361] Lyrically, This Is Me... Then is largely focused on her relationship with Ben Affleck, with the song "Dear Ben" being described as the album's "glowing centerpiece".[362] Its sequel album, This Is Me... Now, was informed by her reunion and marriage with Affleck; Lopez called it an "emotional, spiritual, and psychological journey of the past two decades".[363] Como Ama una Mujer features introspective lyrics about romance, heartache and self-loathing.[125] Regarding Love?, Lopez stated: "There's still so much to learn and that's why the question mark."[361] Other recurrent themes in Lopez's music have included her upbringing in the Bronx,[29][364] social class[354] and women's empowerment.[365]
Lopez has received mixed reviews for her "light" soubrette voice,[366] which critics have deemed limited, "radio-friendly" and overshadowed by her music's production.[367][368] With On the 6, The Baltimore Sun regarded Lopez as having a "breathy" stylistic range but lacking personality,[369] while Rolling Stone remarked: "Instead of strained vocal pyrotechnics, Lopez sticks to the understated R&B murmur of a round-the-way superstar who doesn't need to belt because she knows you're already paying attention ... She makes a little va-va and a whole lot of voom go a long way."[370]
In reviewing Love?, AllMusic called her voice "slight" and wrote: "Lopez was never, ever about singing; she was about style".[371] Pitchfork described her "notoriously serviceable, airy and light" voice as being "stronger than ever" on This Is Me... Now, while noting that "the thinness of the voice has often been beside the point, if not a boon to her early career", which was marked by "Bronx regularness".[122] Lopez has been criticized for her use of background vocals from demo singers, prompting rumors of ghost singers' vocals being used in place of her own.[372][373] The rumors have been debunked by producers and background singers who worked with Lopez.[374][375] Christina Milian, who is credited as a writer and background singer on "Play", called the controversy "funny" and said: "It's no different than Michael Jackson having background singers on songs or Britney Spears. This is what music is made of."[375]
Lopez has written a memoir and co-written one children's book so far.
Headlining tours
Co-headlining tours
Residencies