Jennifer Lopez otherwise known as J.Lo is easily the most influential Hispanic triple threat entertainer in the game. Her talent in dancing, acting, and singing has been a worthy competition in the entertainment industry for years. Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born July 24th, 1969 in Bronx, NY. She grew up in the Castle Hill neighborhood as a middle child next to two other sisters. Being that her ethnic roots stem from Puerto Rico, there was a lot of music and performance growing up in her household. Her parents encouraged Jennifer and her sisters to sing, dance, and put on shows. She attended ballet classes at five years old as well as learning many other styles of dance. In her teenage years, she grew to teach dance at studios to younger kids. After graduating high school, she obtained work at a law firm and studied business at Baruch College in New York. Realizing the law firm wasn't for her, she decided to enroll as a full-time student at a Manhattan dance studio.
Lopez says she was heavily inspired by the classic film "West Side Story" and knew from an early age she wanted to work in entertainment. By the age of 20, her passion for performance leads her to be a part of various musicals. In 1989, she toured Europe for five months for a musical theater production called "The Golden Musicals of Broadway" as a chorus singer. She stayed active seeking freelance work in other chorus productions and dancing in music videos. Making appearances alongside artists like MC Hammer and Doug E. Fresh. When she returned from the Synchronicity tour in Japan, Lopez was hired to dance backup for a New Kids on the Block performance of the song "Games" at the American Music Awards. All this hard work led Lopez to move to Los Angeles, taking her first stepping stone to stardom when she landed a role as a Fly Girl dancer in the hit tv series "In Living Color" in 1991. She spent her time filming the show by day and taking acting classes by night. From there, she rose to prominence among the right people and received offers for more high-profile gigs like dancing back up for Janet Jackson's music videos. The offer increased when Jennifer was invited to dance on tour with Janet but ultimately decided she wanted to pursue her acting career, being that she’s been dancing on "The Living Color" for two seasons.
In 1993, Jennifer began to get casted in small roles in different films and tv series and within four years, landed her first lead role for the film Selena (1997), making her the first Hispanic woman to earn over $1 million for a film and received a Golden Globe nomination. After a few acting projects, by 1999 Jennifer finalized the Trinity as a triple-threat entertainer by starting her music career. Her debut album “On the 6” was a hit featuring singles like “Waiting For Tonight” and “If You Had my Love” which both made it to the Billboards Hot 100 list. In 2000, J.Lo attended the American music awards with P. Diddy whom she was dating at the time. Her iconic green deep plunge Versace dress she wore to the event gained worldwide attention and was the most searched query in Google history leading to the creation of Google Images! Things broke off with Diddy after the couple was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon and possession of the stolen property, leaving the scene of a shooting at a Times Square nightclub. Charges against Lopez were dropped within an hour.
By 2001, J.Lo was setting milestones having her second album (J.Lo) and film “The Wedding Planner” both ranked number one during the same week! Making her the first woman in the entertainment industry to ever do so! Currently, Jennifer is married to actor Ben Affleck which makes a lovely happy ending given their past. They met on the set of the film “Gigli” in 2001 which turned out to be a box office failure but success was apparent in their infatuation for each other. Affleck appeared in J.Lo’s music video “Jenny From the Block” (2002) as they were dating and apparently Lopez dedicated the album (This is me…Then) to Affleck. The engagement was announced in November 2002 and wedding plans were set for September 2003 but were postponed due to high media volume attracted by J.Lo's success and highly publicized relationship, which Affleck wasn’t a fan of. This fact acted as one of the reasons why the couple had split. Lopez went on to marry Latin singer, Marc Anthony in 2004 who became the father of her two children who are fraternal twins. Lopez’s marriage with Anthony didn’t last when the couple began divorce procedures in 2012. Today, Jennifer Lopez is still performing as an icon in music and film industry. Her latest project was a film called “Marry Me” (2022) featuring Owen Wilson. Talk of an upcoming movie called “The Mother” has been said to release by 2023.
