Background

Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born on July 24, 1969, in The Bronx borough of New York City, New York, the United States. Jennifer is the second of the three children born to Guadalupe Rodriguez and David Lopez. Both their parents were born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, the second-largest Puerto Rican city. The two were brought to the continental United States during their childhoods and, eventually, met while living in New York City. Jennifer is the middle of three musically-inclined sisters, Leslie Scholl, a homemaker, and Lynda Lopez, who is a DJ on New York's WKTU, a VH1 VJ, and a morning news show correspondent on New York's Channel 11.

When Lopez was born, the family was living in a small apartment. A few years later, her parents had saved up enough money to be able to purchase a two-story house, which was considered a big deal for the relatively poor family.

Although her mother, a kindergarten teacher, and her father, a computer specialist, wanted her to study, Jennifer was having none of it. Jennifer always dreamed of being a multi-tasking superstar. As a child, she enjoyed a variety of musical genres, mainly Afro-Caribbean rhythms like salsa, merengue and bachata, and mainstream music like pop, hip-hop, and R&B. Although she loved music, the film industry also intrigued her.

Education

Jennifer was five when her parents sent her to singing and dancing classes. She toured New York with her school when she was seven years old. Her parents stressed the importance of work ethic and being able to speak English. They encouraged their three daughters to put on performances at home - singing and dancing in front of each other and their friends so that they would stay "out of trouble". Lopez spent her entire academic career attending eight years at an all-girls catholic high school named "Holy Family," located in the Bronx, before graduating from Preston High School after a four-year stay. At school, Jennifer was an amazing athlete and participated in track and field and tennis.

She enrolled in Baruch College just to please her parents, which she dropped out of after a semester. Following her parents' dissatisfaction with her dropping college, she moved out and started living in an apartment in Manhattan.

Career

Jennifer Lopez performed internationally in stage musicals, and at age 16 she made her film debut with a small role in My Little Girl (1986). Her television break came in 1990 when she was cast as one of the “Fly Girls,” dancers who appeared on the comedy show In Living Color. After she left the show, she turned her focus to acting, first in several short-lived television series and then in movie roles.

Lopez's first big break came in 1997 when she was chosen to play the title role in Selena, a biopic of the Tejano pop singer Selena Quintillana-Perez, who was killed by a fan in 1995. Lopez earned widespread praise for her performance, including a Golden Globe nomination. That same year, Lopez starred in the forgettable Anaconda and in Blood and Wine, opposite Jack Nicholson. Her role as federal marshal Karen Sisco in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight, a film based on the Elmore Leonard novel and co-starring George Clooney, further enhanced her image as a bankable movie star.

Lopez's musical career also began to take off, as she released her debut Latin pop album, On the 6, in June 1999. The album, fueled by the success of her hit single, "If You Had My Love," went platinum within two weeks, making Lopez - along with Ricky Martin - one of the most influential examples of the growing Latin cultural influence in pop music.

Early in 2000, Lopez was nominated for Best Dance Performance for her second hit single "Waiting for Tonight," but lost the award to veteran diva Cher. In the summer of 2000, she starred in the science fiction-thriller The Cell, in which she plays a child psychologist helping to track a terrifying serial killer. The same year, she starred in Enough, a portrayal of spousal abuse.

The popularity of the multi-talented Lopez reached new heights in early 2001, when her album J. Lo debuted at No. 1 on the pop charts, while her film, the romantic comedy The Wedding Planner, shot to the top spot at the box office in its first week of release. In December 2002, she delivered another one-two punch with the release of the record This Is Me ... Then and a starring role in the comedy Maid in Manhattan, which was a box office hit, if not a critical one.

In 2003, Lopez co-starred with Ben Affleck in the box office bomb Gigli. Other projects included Jersey Girl (also with Affleck) and An Unfinished Life, in which she stars as a single mom taken in by her father-in-law, played by Robert Redford. She also starred opposite Richard Gere in Shall We Dance?, a remake of the top-grossing Japanese flick.

Returning to the big stage, Lopez found time to join forces with her husband in the 2006 biopic El Cantante. In the film, Anthony plays Hector Lavoe, the internationally acclaimed salsa singer, with Lopez alongside him as Puchi, Lavoe's wife.

In 2007, Lopez released her first Spanish language album, Como Ama una Mujer, which did well on the Latin and pop charts. She found musical success again later that same year with Brave.

In 2010, despite being busy with her family and both music and acting projects, Lopez decided to enter into a new phase in her career: She announced her plans to replace Ellen DeGeneres as the new female judge on the 10th season of American Idol, which had also just welcomed Aerosmith's Steven Tyler as part of its celebrity judge panel.

Lopez returned to the hit reality TV show for its 11th season, earning a reported $20 million, almost double what she had made when she first signed on.

In 2012, Lopez announced that she would be leaving American Idol. "I honestly feel like the time has come that I have to get back to doing the other things that I do, that I put ... on hold because I love Idol so much," Lopez told Ryan Seacrest on his morning radio show. Her departure from the show proved short-lived, however, as Lopez returned to American Idol for its 13th season, in 2014.

Lopez also continued to work on her own music, releasing the album A.K.A. in June of 2014. Around this time, Lopez also collaborated with Pitbull and Claudia Leitte on the song "We Are One" for the World Cup, and went on to work on the 2015 thriller The Boy Next Door, with Ryan Guzman.

On the small screen, Lopez joined Ray Liotta on the NBC police drama Shades of Blue, playing a corrupt cop who turns against her fellow officers to save her own neck and protect her daughter. The show debuted in 2016 to mixed reviews but later found its footing. That same year, Lopez served as a judge for the final season of American Idol and delivered the first performance of her All I Have residency at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

Lopez also was active behind the scenes, playing the role of executive producer. In July 2016, NBC announced that it would be partnering up with her for a dance competition called World of Dance, which offered a $1 million prize for the taking. The show debuted in May 2017, later getting renewed for a second season.

Remaining busy into 2018, the multi-talented entertainer dropped an English-language single, "Us," in February, before following with the Spanish-language "El Anillo" and the bilingual "Dinero" in the spring. Later in the year, her track "Limitless" accompanied her return to the big screen in the rom-com Second Act.

In February 2019, Lopez announced that she will be embarking on her first concert tour in nearly seven years to celebrate her upcoming 50th birthday. Titled It's My Party, the tour will consist of thirty dates, commencing in June 2019.

Lopez is set to star in and executive produce Hustlers (2019), directed by Lorene Scafaria, for STX Entertainment, also featuring Constance Wu, inspired by a New York article by Jessica Pressler entitled "The Hustlers at Scores", following a group of Manhattan strippers who take revenge on their wealthy clients. The film is set to premiere on September 13, 2019.

Lopez is attached to star as drug lord Griselda Blanco in The Godmother for STX Entertainment, which will focus on the "rise and fall" of Blanco. She will once more serve as an executive producer for the film, which is currently in development. As an executive producer, Lopez is also developing an untitled legal drama for CBS and futuristic drama series entitled C.R.I.S.P.R. for NBC.

Achievements

• 

  With a cumulative film gross of US$3 billion and estimated global sales of 80 million records, Lopez is regarded as the most influential Latin performer in the United States. In 2012, Forbes ranked her as the most powerful celebrity in the world, as well as the 38th most powerful woman in the world. Time listed her among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018.
  
  Her most successful singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 include: If You Had My Love, Love Don't Cost a Thing, I'm Real, Ain't It Funny, Jenny from the Block, All I Have, and On the Floor, which is one of the best-selling singles of all time. Her album J to tha L-O! The Remixes was acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as the first number one remix album in the United States.
  
  For her contributions to the music industry, Lopez has received a landmark star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Billboard Icon Award. In 2018, Lopez received the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards, making her the first Latin performer to claim the prize since its introduction in 1984. Her other ventures include clothing lines, fragrances, a production company, and a charitable foundation.
  
  Jennifer Lopez is immensely popular among her fans and with magazines as well. People magazine rated her as the “World’s Most Beautiful Women”. Apart from that, Jennifer Lopez is the only woman who has topped the For Him Magazine’s (FHM) list of the 100 Sexiest Females in the world not once but thrice. She made it on top of the FHM list for 3 consecutive years.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Manufacturing Dissent

    (In the realm of documentary filmmaking there is no greate...)

    2007
  • Jennifer Lopez:Dance Again

    (Jennifer Lopez: Dance Again combines riveting musical per...)

    2014
  • Ice Age: Continental Drift

    (The "Ice Age" saga continues in this sidesplitting sequel...)

    2012
  • Jersey Girl

    (Ollie (Affleck) is a smooth and successful big-city publi...)

    2004
  • What to Expect When You're Expecting

    (Inspired by the perennial bestseller, What to Expect When...)

    2012
  • Enough

    (Working-class waitress Slim (Jennifer Lopez -The Wedding ...)

    2002
  • Lila and Eve

    (Lila, a grief-stricken mother reeling from her son's murd...)

    2015
  • The Cell

    (When Stargher, a serial killer who drowns his victims in ...)

    2000
  • Ice Age: Collision Course

    (When Scrat triggers cosmic events that threaten the Ice A...)

    2016
  • Money Train

    (Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson play undercover cops in...)

    1995
  • El Cantante

    (In their dazzling first on-screen pairing, Jennifer Lopez...)

    2006
  • Angel Eyes

    (After meeting under extraordinary life-and-death circumst...)

    2001
  • Anaconda

    (A monstrous snake terrorizes filmmakers on the Amazon Riv...)

    1997
  • Gigli

    (When small time street thug Larry Gigli meets a tough and...)

    2003
  • Shall We Dance?

    (A romantic comedy where a bored, overworked Estate Lawyer...)

    2004
  • An Unfinished Life

    (Stoic and heartbroken, Einar Gilkyson quietly lives in th...)

    2005
  • Blood and Wine

    (Jack Nicholson stars as a wine dealer whose theft of a va...)

    1997
  • Monster-In-Law

    (The love life of professional dog walker consists of an e...)

    2005
  • Selena

    (Jennifer Lopez ("Angel Eyes, " "The Cell") stars in this ...)

    1997
  • The Boy Next Door

    (Jennifer Lopez stars in The Boy Next Door, a psychologica...)

    2015
  • Out of Sight

    (George Clooney is a charming crook and Jennifer Lopez is ...)

    1998
  • Antz

    (No picnic will ever be the same when DreamWorks Animation...)

    1998
  • Second Act

    (Jennifer Lopez stars as Maya, a 40-year-old woman struggl...)

    2018
  • U-Turn

    (A small-time gambler stranded in a desert mining town is ...)

    1997
  • Parker

    (Based on the Richard Stark novels, Parker is a thief who ...)

    2013
  • Home

    (In the year's hit comedy, a lovable misfit from another p...)

    2015
  • The Wedding Planner

    (A romantic comedy about love, destiny and other events yo...)

    2001
  • Maid In Manhattan

    (A woman (Lopez) takes a job as a chambermaid at a luxury ...)

    2002
  • Jack

    (Robin Williams stars as a 10-year-old in a grown-up's body.)

    1996
  • The Back Up Plan

    (After dating a string of Mr. Wrongs, Zoe (Jennifer Lopez)...)

    2010

• music

  • On The 6 1999
  • J.Lo 2001
  • This Is Me...Then 2002
  • Rebirth 2005
  • Como Ama Una Mujer 2007
  • Brave 2007
  • Love? 2011
  • A.K.A. 2014
  • J To Tha L-O! The Remixes 2002
  • Dance Again...The Hits 2012
  • The Reel Me 2003
  • Control Myself 2006
  • This Boy's Fire 2008
  • T.H.E (The Hardest Ever Tribute) 2011
  • Follow The Leader 2012
  • Sweet Spot 2013
  • Quizàs, Quizàs, Quizàs 2013
  • Adrenalina 2014
  • We Are One (Ole Ola) 2014
  • Stressin 2014
  • Back It Up 2015
  • El Mismo Sol 2015
  • Try Me 2015

Religion

Lopez was raised in her mother's Roman Catholic religion. Her father has been a Scientologist for twenty years, and now she’s one, too. Jennifer Lopez spouts the same blandishments as other “spiritual” stars: "At the end of the day it’s all about being, like, a good person-centered, focused and at peace."

When Lopez converted to Scientology, it caused some to speculate that her new religion caused the split between her and Marc Anthony, who was never as keen on the religion as Lopez and was against sending their children to Scientology-based private school.

Politics

Lopez endorsed President Barack Obama in his 2012 presidential campaign, speaking in television advertisements and attending a fundraising event for Obama in Paris. She endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, headlining a free concert in Florida in support of her that October.

Views

Following the September 11 attacks, Lopez was heavily involved in charitable activities. Joining various other artists, she was featured on charitable singles such as "What's Going On" and "El Ultimo Adios (The Last Goodbye)", which benefited people affected by the tragedy.

In February 2007, Lopez was honored with the Artists for Amnesty prize by the human rights organization Amnesty International, for her work in the film Bordertown, which shed light on the hundreds of female homicides in Ciudad Juárez. Lopez described it as "one of the world's most shocking and disturbing, underreported crimes against humanity."

In 2009, Lopez launched the Lopez Family Foundation (originally known as the Maribel Foundation) alongside her sister, Lynda. The nonprofit organization seeks to increase the availability of healthcare for underprivileged women and children, offering a telemedicine program supported by a partnership with the Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The foundation has led to the expansion of medical facilities in Panama and Puerto Rico and created the Center for a Healthy Childhood at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

In December 2012, Lopez held a charity drive that would affect her three favorite charities: the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles as well as the American Red Cross, mainly benefiting victims of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of her home town, New York City. In May 2015, she became the first national celebrity spokesperson for the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and the BC Children's Hospital Foundation (BCCHF), appearing in a campaign entitled "Put Your Money Where the Miracles Are".

Lopez is an avid supporter of LGBT rights and has raised millions of dollars for HIV/AIDS research. In July 2016, Lopez released a single entitled "Love Make the World Go Round", a collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda, which benefits victims of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting. Among numerous other artists, Lopez signed an open letter from Billboard magazine to the United States Congress in 2016, which demanded action on gun control.

In March 2018, Lopez opened up about her own Me Too movement story of being sexually harassed by a director early on in her career, when she was asked to take her top off during one of her first films. Lopez has also been an active advocate for the Time's Up movement.

Quotations: "If you focus on the money, you're not going to get anywhere. You can want to be successful, but at the end of the day, if money is your motivation, if that's how shallow your outlook is on life, then you're going to be such an empty person. Because there's nothing driving you from the inside - there's no passion..."

"Beauty is only skin deep. I think what's really important is finding a balance of mind, body, and spirit. Somebody said to me not too long ago, "Until you're twenty, you have the face you are born with, and after that, you have the face you deserve", and I really loved that - the idea that you wear who you are on your face."

"If you kiss on the first date and it's not right, then there will be no second date. Sometimes it's better to hold out and not kiss for a long time. I am a strong believer in kissing being very intimate, and the minute you kiss, the floodgates open for everything else."

Personality

Lopez opened up about many personal experiences in her 2015 memoir, "True Love," including the time she successfully completed a triathlon in 2008: "Now, understand, I had never done a triathlon before," she wrote. "I had run a 10K when I was 12, but never anything close to a triathlon. On the morning of the race, as I was standing there surrounded by a thousand paparazzi, about to jump into the ocean, I realized that this probably wasn't the best idea I ever had."

Lopez released her debut album in June 1999, and the title paid homage to her hometown. At the onset of her career as a singer, dancer, and actress, Lopez used New York City's subway system to travel from place to place. Specifically, she used the 6 train to commute from the Bronx to Manhattan, hence the album title.

Jennifer Lopez admits that she lacks computer knowledge and is awfully terrible when it comes to operating computers. She has a hard time using computers or going online.

Jennifer Lopez is one of the Hollywood celebrities who does not drink or smoke. Lopez practices 20 minutes a day of meditation to help her feel more in control.

Physical Characteristics: Lopez has a scar on her forehead that she got from banging her head into a table. She was reportedly running around a mall when she incurred the scar.

Interests

• Favorite TV show: Mob Wives

• Politicians

  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

• Writers

  You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay

• Artists

  Donatella Versace, Oilivier Rousteing

• Sport & Clubs

  Baseball, Football, Tennis, New York Yankees, Miami Dolphins

• Athletes

  Alex Rodriguez

• Music & Bands

  Rapper's Delight, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, James Brown, Madonna

Connections

Lopez's personal life has attracted widespread media attention. Lopez was briefly married, in 1997, to Ojani Noa, a model, and actor. She then had a lengthy and widely publicized relationship with rapper Sean "Puffy" Combs.

Shortly after that breakup was made public, Lopez began dating Cris Judd, a dancer who appeared in the video for her hit single "Love Don't Cost a Thing." After much media speculation, the couple announced their engagement in August 2001 and were married in late September. Nine months later, the couple separated.

In the fall of 2002, the star began dating actor Ben Affleck; they announced their engagement in November. Following rumors of the relationship's demise, the couple broke up in early 2004.

Lopez subsequently married singer Marc Anthony in June 2004 at a private ceremony at her Los Angeles mansion. On November 7, 2007, during the final night of their co-headlining tour, Lopez and Anthony officially confirmed that they were expecting their first child. The announcement ended months of speculation over the pregnancy.

Lopez gave birth to a son and a daughter in Long Island, New York, on February 22, 2008. The baby boy and girl, named Maximilian and Emme, were the first children for Lopez, and the fourth and fifth for Anthony. The twins were introduced in the March 11, 2008, issue of People, for which the magazine paid a reported $6 million; the photographs of the twins became the most expensive celebrity picture ever taken at the time. Three years later in July 2011, the couple announced their split, with Anthony filing for divorce in April 2012. Their divorce was finalized on June 16, 2014, with Lopez retaining primary physical custody of the two children. On December 31, 2014, she legally changed her name back to Jennifer Lopez, dropping Anthony's last name (Muñiz).

Lopez began dating Casper Smart, one of her backup dancers, in 2011. They ended their relationship in 2016. In 2017, People magazine reported that she began dating former baseball star, Alex Rodriguez. The two later opened up about their blossoming romance in the December 2017 issue of Vanity Fair. "I understand him in a way that I don’t think anyone else could, and he understands me in a way that no one else could ever," said Lopez.

She continued singing A-Rod's praises in a March 2018 interview with Harper's Bazaar, noting their "similar makeup," though she wouldn't commit to tying the knot with the slugger-turned-broadcaster just yet. "I do believe in marriage," she said. "And I would love to grow old with somebody in a committed relationship. But I'm not forcing anything right now." In March 2019, they announced their engagement.

Father:

David Lopez

Mother:

Guadalupe Rodríguez

Lopez has always been close to her mom, even when they didn’t see eye to eye. She credits her mom for giving her some very sound advice: “If you work hard, you can achieve anything.” Lopez comments, “And it’s true. It’s one of the truest things ever.”

After her first major acting role (and first major pay check) as Selena in Selena, Lopez bought her mom a brand new Cadillac as a gesture of gratitude for her unwavering support and love.

Sister:

Leslie Scholl

Sister:

Lynda Lopez

Ex-husband:

Ojani Noa

Since their brief marriage, Lopez has endured many legal troubles regarding her relationship with Noa. In April 2006, she sued to prevent him from publishing a book about their marriage, contending that it violated their confidentiality agreement. The following year, a court-appointed arbitrator issued a permanent injunction forbidding Noa from "criticizing, denigrating, casting in a negative light or otherwise disparaging" Lopez. She was awarded $545,000 in compensatory damages and Noa was ordered to hand over all copies of materials related to the book to Lopez or her attorney. A lawsuit regarding a compromising private honeymoon video in Noa's possession is presently running.

ex-boyfriend:

Sean Combs

In December 1999, Combs and Lopez were allegedly involved in a shooting incident outside a New York City nightclub, in which three people were injured. Combs was later charged with gun possession and bribery, as prosecutors claimed he offered his driver, Wardel Fenderson, $50,000 to say that the loaded gun police found at the scene of the crime was Fenderson's. Combs was acquitted of all charges, and soon confirmed that he and Lopez had separated.

ex-boyfriend:

Ben Affleck

The media began to refer Ben and Jennifer as "Bennifer", and they became a prominent supercouple in the media and popular culture. Bennifer became a popular term, which was eventually entered into urban dictionaries and neologism dictionaries as notable, as the name blend started the trend of other celebrity couples being referred to by the combination of their first names.

Ex-husband:

Marc Anthony

In July 2011, Lopez and Marc Anthony announced their plans to separate. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Lopez didn't reveal the cause of the breakup, but said, "I loved myself enough to walk away." With a new hit song out, the superstar refused to be deterred. "I am positive, determined to move forward with my life, bring up my babies, and do the best job I can as a mother, entertainer, and person."

ex-boyfriend:

Casper Smart

The couple met when they were recording the music video for Dance Again, a year later they started getting closer. The choreographer indicated that they got along very well: “I was very young, I was 23 or 24, she was 18 years older, so she was about 42 years old with two kids. But at the moment, everything just clicked. We spent every day together for a year.”

In an interview with Wake Up America (Univision), Casper revealed that things between them did not work because of the age difference.

Daughter:

Emme Maribel Muñiz

Son:

Maximilian David Muñiz

fiance:

Alex Rodriguez

colleague:

Elizabeth Banks

colleague:

Rebel Wilson

colleague:

Jason Statham

colleague:

Jim Parsons

colleague:

Rihanna (Robyn Fenty)

colleague:

Danny Glover

colleague:

Keke Palmer

Friend:

Katie Holmes

Friend:

Tom Cruise

References

• Jennifer Lopez: True Love
  2014