Jennifer Lopez

• 1. Introduction

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  Jennifer Lopez wore a plunging green Versace silk chiffon dress to the Grammy Awards in February 2000, and a single outfit changed how people used the internet. The dress became the most popular search query in Google's history. That flood of searches led to the creation of Google Images. Lopez is an American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer, and businesswoman. How does a working dancer, living on small jobs, become someone whose wardrobe reshapes a search engine? Why did the public that adored her turn on her in the middle of her career? And what brought her back, again and again, when the verdict looked final?

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• 2. Castle Hill to Fly Girl

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  Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born on the 24th of July 1969 in the Bronx and raised in its Castle Hill neighborhood. Her parents, Guadalupe Rodríguez and David Lopez, were both born in Puerto Rico and met in New York City. David served in the Army and later worked as a computer technician at Guardian Insurance Company. Guadalupe stayed home for the first ten years of her daughter's life, then sold Tupperware and worked as a kindergarten and gym teacher.

  Three sisters shared a single bed in that household. Jennifer was the middle child, with Leslie older and Lynda younger. Lopez has described the upbringing as "strict." The family was Catholic, with Mass every Sunday, a Catholic education at Holy Family School, and then the all-girls private Preston High School.

  Sport filled much of her school days. She ran track at a national level, did gymnastics, and played on the softball team. She called herself a "tomboy" and "very athletic." She also danced in school musicals and won a lead role in a production of Godspell.

  At home there was "lots of music." Lopez and her sisters were encouraged to sing, dance, and write their own plays for family events. The film West Side Story left a deep mark on her, and she wanted to be an entertainer from an early age. She credits Puerto Rican actress Rita Moreno, who appeared in the 1961 film, as a major influence. Moreno was the only performer Lopez could identify with, at a time when Latinos were rarely on television.

  By her teens she was "obsessive" about dance. She later said, "I practiced until my legs and feet ached." At the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club she learned flamenco, jazz, and ballet, and she taught younger students, including Kerry Washington.

  After high school Lopez took a part-time secretarial job at a law firm and spent one semester studying business at Baruch College. At 18 she enrolled full time at Manhattan's Phil Black Dance Studio, where she had already taken night classes in jazz and tap. Her parents thought the choice was "foolish" because "no Latinas did that." Her mother asked her to move out, and mother and daughter did not speak for eight months. Lopez slept in the studio's office for the first few months.

  Her first paid job came in 1989, a five-month tour of Europe with the revue Golden Musicals of Broadway. She was the only chorus member without a solo. She later called that sting a pivotal moment that forced her to "try harder and become that much more committed." In 1990 she danced beside MC Hammer in an episode of Yo! MTV Raps. She also spent four months in Japan as a chorus member in Synchronicity.

  Back in the United States, she backed up New Kids on the Block for their performance of "Games" at the 1991 American Music Awards. She toured America with regional productions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Oklahoma! She also danced in music videos, including Doug E. Fresh's "Summertime" and EPMD's "Rampage." Lopez recalled, "I'd dance in a piece-of-garbage rap or pop video for 50 bucks and make the money last a whole month."

  Her best-known dancing job was as a Fly Girl on the sketch comedy series In Living Color. Choreographer Rosie Perez said she chose Lopez because "she had that look that I knew the audience would tune in to." Lopez moved to Los Angeles in late 1991 for the role. She filmed the show by day and attended acting classes taught by Aaron Speiser at night.

  Life on the set was not easy. Lopez felt shut out by the other Fly Girls because of her "voluptuous figure," and she clashed with Perez. The head of Virgin Records briefly considered signing the Fly Girls as a group to rival the Spice Girls, but the deal fell apart. After seasons three and four, Lopez left to dance for Janet Jackson and appeared in the video for "That's the Way Love Goes." She was due to join Jackson's Janet World Tour in late 1993 but chose acting instead.

  Music executives offered interest in a record deal, and she turned them down to focus on acting. She hired In Living Color producer Eric Gold as her manager. His first piece of advice was that she should lose weight if she wanted to succeed as an actress.

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• 3. Screen Breakthrough

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  In 1994 Lopez landed her first professional acting job, a small recurring role on the television show South Central. A casting director had invited her to audition after seeing her speak to camera in a behind-the-scenes segment of In Living Color. She then found an agent and joined the CBS show Second Chances. That series was cancelled quickly, but viewers liked her enough that she was cast in its spin-off, Hotel Malibu.

  In 1995 she took her first major film part in Gregory Nava's drama Mi Familia and earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She then starred in the action comedy Money Train, which did poorly at the box office although her performance drew good reviews. Francis Ford Coppola cast her in the 1996 comedy Jack, opposite Robin Williams, after watching her in Mi Familia. That year she also played a "calculating Cuban maid" opposite Jack Nicholson in Blood and Wine. David Rooney of Variety felt she balanced the character's "smoldering and soulful sides."

  The role that changed her pay scale was the title part in the 1997 biopic Selena, about singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. It made Lopez the first Latina actress to earn $1 million. She called the salary a "statement to the world," while regretting that other Latina actors were not getting the same chances. Although she had worked with Nava before, she went through an intense audition process. She also spent time with the late singer's family in Corpus Christi, Texas before filming began.

  Selena was a box office hit. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called her work "a star-making performance," and she received her first Golden Globe nomination. Nava asked the heads of Warner Bros. to fund an Academy Award campaign for her. They told him the academy would "never nominate a Latina."

  Later in 1997 she starred opposite Ice Cube in the horror film Anaconda. Critics disliked it, but audiences came. Joe Leydon of Variety found it silly, yet gave it a little credit for putting a Latina and an African-American in the lead roles. In the crime film U Turn, director Oliver Stone added a sex scene during filming. Speaking in 2003, Lopez said it was not something she would have chosen, and that the two of them fought over it. Her summary was, "It's hard being the only woman on a set."

  Out of Sight arrived in 1998, Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel. Lopez played a deputy federal marshal who falls for a charming criminal, opposite George Clooney. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it her "best movie role thus far." That same year Lopez voiced the character Azteca in the animated film Antz. In 2021 Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian would name her pairing with Clooney among the best examples of on-screen chemistry in cinema history.

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• 4. Becoming J.Lo

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  After Selena, Lopez realized she had missed "the excitement of the stage." Her new manager, Benny Medina, wanted to position her as "a brand name that will cross over into all media." She recorded a Spanish-language demo to circulate among labels, and her fame set off a bidding war. Tommy Mottola, head of Sony Music's Work Group, signed her but suggested she sing in English. The lucrative deal outbid offers from Capitol Records and EMI Latin.

  Her debut album, On the 6, came out in 1999. Its title honors the 6 Subway line that connected her childhood home in the Bronx to Manhattan. The first single, "If You Had My Love," spent five consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Waiting for Tonight" reached number eight and became a celebratory anthem for the new millennium. "Let's Get Loud" turned into one of her signature songs. "No Me Ames" was a duet with Marc Anthony, who would later become her husband.

  In July 1999 she performed "If You Had My Love" and "Let's Get Loud" at the closing ceremony of the FIFA Women's World Cup. More than one billion people watched worldwide, and it introduced her music to a far larger international audience.

  In January 2001 Lopez became the first woman to hold the number-one film and number-one album in the United States at the same time. The film was her first romantic comedy, The Wedding Planner, with Matthew McConaughey. The album was J.Lo, her second. She had searched for a romantic comedy for years because she wanted to show she could be "every girl." She explained, "I felt like all the women in romantic comedies always looked the same way, they were always white." Reviews were negative, yet the film opened at number one.

  J.Lo debuted at the top of the Billboard 200. Lopez was the first female solo artist on Epic Records to do that since the label began in 1953. The title came from the nickname her fans gave her, and she adopted it as her stage name. Critics were mixed, but it became the most successful album of her career, selling 12 million copies worldwide. "Love Don't Cost a Thing" reached number one in various countries. A remix of "I'm Real" featuring rapper Ja Rule hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

  In September 2001 she gave her first concerts, a two-concert residency in Puerto Rico. NBC broadcast it that November as Jennifer Lopez in Concert, and almost 12 million Americans watched. In the same year she founded the production company Nuyorican Productions with Medina.

  Two more albums followed in 2002. J to tha L, O! The Remixes became the first remix album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, and "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)" reached the top of the Hot 100. This Is Me... Then, released late that year, was heavily shaped by her relationship with then-fiancé Ben Affleck. It brought the highest opening sales week of her career. Its lead single, "Jenny from the Block," peaked at number three, and "All I Have" reached number one.

  Her film pay rose alongside her record sales. She earned $4 million for the 2000 thriller The Cell, and by 2002 she was making $8 million per feature. Maid in Manhattan, in which she played a maid and single mother from the Bronx opposite Ralph Fiennes, became the highest-grossing film of her career at that point.

  Not everyone was won over by her voice. Critics have called her "light" soubrette voice thin and overshadowed by production, and rumors circulated that ghost singers replaced her. Christina Milian, who sang background on "Play," called the controversy "funny." Years later Lopez would credit Marc Anthony with helping her find her best singing voice.

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• 5. Scrutiny and Slump

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  In mid-2003 Lopez fired both her manager, Benny Medina, and her publicist. The New York Times reported that movie executives had grown frustrated because their communications with her were "largely filtered" through Medina. The tabloids, meanwhile, painted her as a demanding diva, and her public relationship with Ben Affleck drew heavy criticism. That year the pair starred together in the romantic comedy Gigli, a box-office bomb now considered one of the worst films of all time. Rex Reed of The Observer called the leads "pathetically incompetent." Roger Ebert agreed the film did not quite work but found the couple appealing and noted their chemistry.

  Tabloids dubbed the couple "Bennifer," a label Vanity Fair described as the first tabloid branding of its kind. Their wedding, planned for the 14th of September 2003, was postponed with four days' notice because of "excessive media attention." They ended the engagement in January 2004. Affleck's discomfort with the spotlight was one reason, Lopez later said, and she called it her "first real heartbreak."

  In the 2004 film Jersey Girl, her role was cut to a minor part, and her screen time was halved after test audiences reacted badly to the couple on screen. Lopez later called this the lowest point of her career and said she felt "eviscerated" by the coverage. She added, "It was a two-year thing for me until I picked myself up again." She married singer Marc Anthony in June 2004, five months after the engagement to Affleck ended.

  Shall We Dance?, with Richard Gere, was a box-office success that year. In early 2005 she released her fourth album, Rebirth, a title that expressed hopes for a new professional beginning. It reached number two on the Billboard 200 but sold less than her earlier albums. Alexis Petridis wondered in a review what had happened to her. Its lead single, "Get Right," reached number twelve on the Hot 100.

  The marketing for the 2005 comedy Monster-in-Law, with Jane Fonda, leaned into her tarnished image, and the film succeeded. Ebert urged critics to give Lopez "permission to be good again." Her 2006 crime drama Bordertown, in which she played a journalist investigating killings of women in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, went direct to video.

  By 2007 her music had hit a plateau. She starred opposite Anthony in El Cantante, the story of Puerto Rican salsa singer Héctor Lavoe and his wife Puchi. It struggled at the box office. Her album Como Ama una Mujer, her first fully in Spanish, achieved the highest first-week sales for a debut Spanish album at that time. Brave, released later that year, became her lowest-charting album worldwide, debuting at number 12.

  While pregnant with twins, she began her first concert tour in September 2007, co-headlined by Anthony. The twins were born in February 2008, and Lopez took a long career break. In late 2009 two new songs, "Louboutins" and "Fresh Out of the Oven," failed to chart, and she left Sony Music and Epic Records. Her first theatrical role in three years came in the 2010 comedy The Back-up Plan. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called her "an appealing screen presence with a disappointing big-screen track record."

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• 6. The Comeback Years

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  When American Idol invited Lopez to join its judging panel for the tenth season, in 2011, she replaced Simon Cowell. People warned her it was a "huge gamble." She accepted anyway, because she was "not getting offered a whole bunch of movies." Hannah Elliot of Forbes wrote that the show humanized her, introducing viewers who knew only a glamorous siren to a hardworking, empathetic mother. Billboard called it the most impressive reality-TV-based rejuvenation of a music career ever.

  She signed with Island Records, and her seventh album, Love?, arrived in early 2011. The album was only a moderate success, but "On the Floor" became the best-selling single of her career. It reached number three on the Hot 100 and was the year's highest-selling single by a female artist. A study of more than one billion Google searches since 2004 named her the world's greatest musical comeback act at the end of 2011.

  She returned to Idol in 2012 for a reported $20 million. That year she released a greatest hits album, Dance Again... the Hits, to fulfil her contract with Epic. She was also divorcing Anthony and said the title single, "Dance Again," came to her at the perfect moment. It reached number 17. Her first headlining tour, the Dance Again World Tour, began in mid-2012 and grossed over $1 million per show.

  On screen, she appeared in What to Expect When You're Expecting and voiced a saber tooth tiger named Shira in Ice Age: Continental Drift. A 2012 talent show, ¡Q'Viva! The Chosen, followed Lopez, Anthony, and director-choreographer Jamie King across 21 countries in Latin America searching for talent for a Las Vegas show. In 2013 she played Leslie opposite Jason Statham in Parker. She became chief creative officer of NuvoTV and executive produced The Fosters, a series about a lesbian couple raising a family. Her late aunt, who was gay, drove her interest in the show.

  Her eighth album, A.K.A., came out in mid-2014 and became her lowest-selling album in the United States. That year she also released "We Are One (Ole Ola)," the official song of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, with Pitbull and Claudia Leitte.

  In January 2016 she opened a Las Vegas residency, All I Have, at Planet Hollywood's Zappos Theater. Over a three-year run she performed 120 shows and grossed more than $100 million in ticket sales. That year she also began starring in and executive producing the NBC police drama Shades of Blue, playing single mother and detective Harlee Santos. Its premiere gave NBC its most-watched Thursday debut in seven years. In May 2017 she became executive producer and judge of the dance series World of Dance, which was a ratings success.

  In 2018 she released Spanish and Spanglish singles, including "Dinero" with DJ Khaled and Cardi B and "Te Guste" with Bad Bunny. Forbes noted that they did not fully cross over to the mainstream, but nearly all reached number one on the Billboard Latin Airplay chart. The comedy Second Act took in over $72 million on a $16 million budget. In the first half of 2019 she toured to celebrate her 50th birthday on It's My Party, which grossed an estimated $54.7 million from thirty-eight shows.

  Then came Hustlers, directed by Lorene Scafaria and inspired by a true story of Manhattan strippers who con wealthy Wall Street clients. Lopez, who also executive produced, earned acclaim, and some critics called it the best performance of her career. The film brought her highest opening weekend for a live action film, $33.2 million. She received Best Supporting Actress nominations from the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, the Critics' Choice awards, and the Independent Spirit Awards. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti cited her perceived Academy Award snub when announcing a new initiative for Latino representation in Hollywood.

  In February 2020 she co-headlined the Super Bowl LIV halftime show in Miami with Shakira, and it became the most-watched halftime show to date. During "Let's Get Loud," she wore a large Puerto Rican flag as a cloak while children in metal cages appeared on the field. People read it as a statement on the border crisis and immigration policy under Donald Trump. The NFL tried to remove the cages from the performance, and Lopez refused.

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• 7. The Streaming Era

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  In mid-2021 Lopez signed a multi-year deal with Netflix to make films and television through her company Nuyorican Productions. In 2022 she co-produced and starred in the romantic comedy Marry Me, with Owen Wilson and Maluma, which grossed over $50 million. It became the most-streamed day-and-date film on Peacock. Her documentary Jennifer Lopez: Halftime, about the time after Hustlers and before her Super Bowl show, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and drew positive reviews.

  In 2023 she led the action thriller The Mother, which became the most-watched film on Netflix that year. She also starred in Shotgun Wedding, one of the year's top-streamed films on Amazon Prime Video. Collider and Deadline Hollywood noted her to be among the most successful actors of the streaming era.

  On the 16th of July 2022 Lopez married Ben Affleck in Las Vegas, twenty years after their first engagement, and held a celebration for family and friends the following month. In February 2024 she released her ninth album, This Is Me... Now, a sequel to This Is Me... Then. It was the centerpiece of a "three-part multimedia project." The project included a concert film released by Apple TV+, a musical film called This Is Me... Now: A Love Story, and a documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told.

  When potential partners backed out of the musical film, Lopez financed it herself for $20 million before Amazon bought it. It succeeded on Prime Video, but the film and documentary divided audiences, partly because of how much attention her relationship with Affleck received. She cancelled the planned This Is Me... Live North American tour to spend time with her family. Soon after, it was announced that the couple were divorcing. She later said it felt as if her whole world had exploded under the public scrutiny. She filed for divorce on the 20th of August 2024, and it was finalized on the 6th of January 2025.

  Her film work continued. Atlas, a 2024 science-fiction thriller, drew negative reviews but succeeded on Netflix. Unstoppable, in which she plays the mother of wrestler Anthony Robles, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Owen Gleiberman of Variety called it "the fullest screen performance she has ever given." Variety presented her with its Legend & Groundbreaker Award at the 2025 Palm Springs International Film Festival.

  By now Lopez had sold over 80 million records worldwide, and her films had grossed over US$1.9 billion in total. Her honors include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Billboard Icon Award, three American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, and six Guinness World Records.

  In 2025 she took Up All Night: Live to twenty dates across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Kiss of the Spider Woman, directed by Bill Condon, gave her her first role in a full-fledged musical, and Condon wrote the part with her in mind. In December 2025 she opened a Las Vegas residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace that spans 12 shows. On the 6th of March 2026 she released the single "Save Me Tonight" with French DJ and producer David Guetta.

  In May 2026 the Prime Video series Off Campus showed a character dancing to "On the Floor" dressed as Lopez in the green Versace dress. The song, marking its 15th anniversary, re-entered several global charts, including the Billboard Global 200. It also passed one billion streams on Spotify, the first of her songs to do so.

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• 8. Business and Causes

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  In 1998 Lopez became a national spokesperson for Coca-Cola and L'Oréal, her first step into product endorsement. Three years later she launched her first business, the lifestyle brand J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez. Its clothing line was aimed at women of all sizes. In 2002 she opened a Los Angeles restaurant, Madre's, serving Latin cuisine. She also released her first fragrance, Glow by JLo, with Coty, and it became the top-selling fragrance in the United States. By 2020 she had released 30 fragrances. Her clothing lines and two fragrances generated over $300 million in revenue in 2004.

  Not every venture lasted. In the late 2000s Madre's closed permanently, as did her two fashion lines, including the high-fashion label Sweetface she launched in 2005. During her resurgence in 2011, she partnered with Tommy Hilfiger on the Jennifer Lopez Collection for Kohl's, which generated an estimated $3 billion in sales during its first year. In 2017 she became the face of Guess, the oldest spokeswoman in the company's history. In 2021 she launched the skin care company JLo Beauty, and in 2023 she introduced a spritz brand, Delola, with mixologist Lynnette Marrero.

  Her charitable work began in earnest after the September 11 attacks, when she appeared on charity singles such as "What's Going On." In 2007 Amnesty International honored her with its Artists for Amnesty prize for her work on Bordertown, which brought attention to the killings of women in Ciudad Juárez. She has also long supported Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Her album Rebirth is dedicated to Paige Peterson, an eleven-year-old cancer patient she befriended there who died in 2004.

  In 2009 she and her sister Lynda launched the Lopez Family Foundation to expand healthcare access for underprivileged women and children. It helped expand medical facilities in Panama and Puerto Rico and created the Center for a Healthy Childhood at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. After Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria in September 2017, Lopez donated $1 million from her Las Vegas residency to aid Puerto Rico. With Marc Anthony she also launched the relief campaign Somos Una Voz, and their telethon concert "One Voice: Somos Live!" raised over $35 million.

  Politics has also shaped her public life. She endorsed Barack Obama in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. She endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and performed at his January 2021 inauguration, singing "This Land Is Your Land" and "America the Beautiful" and reciting the last phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish. In November 2024 she spoke at a Las Vegas rally for Kamala Harris. She has been a prominent supporter of LGBTQ rights, receiving the Human Rights Campaign's Ally for Equality award in 2013.

  In September 2021 she launched Limitless Labs, which supports Latina entrepreneurs and business owners. Through a partnership with Grameen America, it aims to deliver $14 million in business loans and 6 million hours of financial education and training by 2030.

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