Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lynn Lopez (born July 24, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer, and businesswoman. Lopez is regarded as one of the most influential entertainers of her time, credited with breaking barriers for Latino Americans in Hollywood and helping propel the Latin pop movement in music. She is also known for her cultural impact through fashion, branding, and shifting mainstream beauty standards.

After appearing as a Fly Girl dancer on the sketch comedy series In Living Color (1991–1993), Lopez rose to wider fame as an actress with leading film roles in Selena (1997), Anaconda (1997), Out of Sight (1998), and The Cell (2000). She successfully ventured into music with her debut album, On the 6 (1999), which spawned the US Billboard Hot 100 number-one single "If You Had My Love". With her second album J.Lo and the romantic comedy The Wedding Planner (both 2001), she became the first woman to simultaneously have the number-one album and film in the United States. Her musical success continued with J to tha L–O! The Remixes—the first remix album to top the US Billboard 200—and This Is Me... Then (both 2002). These projects included the US number-one singles "I'm Real", "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)", and "All I Have".

Lopez established herself as one of Hollywood's highest-paid actresses with her roles in romantic comedies, including Maid in Manhattan (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), and Monster-in-Law (2005). She also continued to make music, including the Spanish-language album Como Ama una Mujer (2007), as well as Love? (2011), which spawned the best-selling single of her career, "On the Floor". Following her role in the police drama series Shades of Blue (2016–2018), Lopez's film career saw an upturn with her critically acclaimed performance in the crime drama Hustlers (2019). She has since starred in Marry Me (2022), The Mother (2023), This Is Me... Now: A Love Story and Atlas (both 2024), and received praise for her supporting roles in Unstoppable (2024) and Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025).

Lopez has sold over 80 million records worldwide, while her films have cumulatively grossed over US$1.9 billion. Her accolades include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Billboard Icon Award, nine Billboard Latin Music Awards, three American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award), and six Guinness World Records. She has been ranked among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time (2018) and the World's 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes (2012). Lopez is one of the most-followed individuals on Instagram. Outside of music and acting, Lopez served as a judge on American Idol (2011–2016) and World of Dance (2017–2020). Her other ventures include a lifestyle brand, beauty and fashion lines, fragrances, a production company, and a charitable foundation.

Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born on July 24, 1969, in the Bronx, one of the boroughs of New York City, and raised in its Castle Hill neighborhood. Her parents, Guadalupe Rodríguez and David Lopez, were born in Puerto Rico and met in New York City. After serving in the Army, David worked as a computer technician at Guardian Insurance Company. Guadalupe was a homemaker for the first ten years of Lopez's life, later working as a Tupperware salesperson and a kindergarten and gym teacher. They divorced in the 1990s after 33 years of marriage.

Lopez is a middle child; she has an older sister, Leslie, and a younger sister, Lynda. The three shared a bed. Lopez has described her upbringing as "strict". She was raised in a Catholic family; she attended Mass every Sunday and received a Catholic education, attending Holy Family School and the all-girls Preston High School, a private school. In school, Lopez ran track on a national level, participated in gymnastics, and was on the softball team. She danced in school musicals and played a lead role in a production of Godspell. She described herself as a "tomboy" and "very athletic".

There was "lots of music" in the typically Puerto Rican household, and Lopez and her sisters were encouraged to sing, dance, and create their own plays for family events. West Side Story made a particular impression on the young Lopez, who wanted to be an entertainer from an early age. As a teenager, Lopez became "obsessive" about dance, stating that "I practiced until my legs and feet ached". She learned flamenco, jazz, and ballet at the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club and taught dance to younger students, including Kerry Washington. 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. 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. 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". Her mother asked her to move out of the family home, and they stopped speaking for eight months. Lopez moved to Manhattan, sleeping in the dance studio's office for the first few months.

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". In 1990, she danced alongside MC Hammer in an episode of Yo! MTV Raps, and traveled around Japan for four months as a chorus member in Synchronicity. 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. She also traveled around America with regional productions of the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Oklahoma!. 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", and Samantha Fox's "(Hurt Me! Hurt Me!) But the Pants Stay On". 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."

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". 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. Lopez felt ostracized by the other Fly Girls because of her "voluptuous figure", and also clashed with Perez. The head of Virgin Records considered signing The Fly Girls as a girl group to rival the Spice Girls, but the deal fell apart. 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". She was scheduled to tour with Jackson on her Janet World Tour in late 1993 but opted to pursue an acting career instead. Music industry executives expressed interest in giving Lopez a record deal, but she chose to focus on acting. She hired In Living Color producer Eric Gold as her manager. He advised Lopez to lose weight if she wanted to succeed as an actress.

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. 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. She subsequently appeared in the television film Lost in the Wild (1993). 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. She then starred in the action comedy Money Train (1995). The film was not a box office success, though her performance was reviewed positively, which led to her being further noticed in Hollywood. 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. She next starred opposite Jack Nicholson as a "calculating Cuban maid" 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.

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", but expressed disappointment that other Latina actors were not being afforded the same opportunities. 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. Selena was a box office hit, and Lopez's performance received critical acclaim. 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." 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." 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. 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. In the crime film U Turn (1997), 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."

Lopez starred opposite George Clooney in the crime caper Out of Sight (1998), Steven Soderbergh's adaptation of the Elmore Leonard 1996 novel. Cast as a deputy federal marshal who falls for a charming criminal, she won rave reviews for her performance. 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." 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." 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. Also in 1998, Lopez provided the voice of Azteca in the animated film Antz.

Lopez was in a nearly decade-long relationship with David Cruz, her high-school boyfriend, until the mid-1990s. They were engaged at one point, and Cruz relocated to Los Angeles to be with her when she began pursuing her career. She later said of Cruz, "You get lucky, you have a first love like that." She was married to Cuban waiter Ojani Noa from February 1997 to January 1998. In subsequent court cases, Noa was prevented from publishing a book about their marriage and from using private honeymoon footage of Lopez in a documentary.

Lopez was in an on-again, off-again relationship with record producer and rapper Sean Combs (then known as "Puff Daddy") from 1999 to early 2001. On the night of December 27, 1999, Lopez, Combs and rapper Shyne were arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon and possession of stolen property, after leaving the scene of a shooting at a Times Square nightclub. Charges against Lopez were dropped within an hour while Combs was acquitted of all charges at trial in March 2001. They broke up shortly thereafter. Shyne was sentenced to ten years in prison. Lopez later said that, while she had "cared very much" about Combs, their "crazy, tumultuous" relationship "was always something I knew would end." She was married to Cris Judd, her former backup dancer, from September 2001 to January 2003.

Lopez first ventured into product endorsement in 1998, becoming a national spokesperson for Coca-Cola and L'Oréal. In 2001, Lopez launched her first business venture, the lifestyle brand J.Lo by Jennifer Lopez. It included a clothing line which catered to women of all sizes, as Lopez felt "the voluptuous woman [was] almost ignored" in the fashion industry. The following year, she opened Madre's, a Los Angeles restaurant serving Latin cuisine, and released her first fragrance, Glow by JLo, through a partnership with Coty, Inc.; it became the top-selling fragrance in the U.S. In 2003, she released a second fragrance, Still Jennifer Lopez, and became the face of Louis Vuitton's fall advertising campaign. Lopez has since released 30 fragrances as of 2020. Her clothing lines and two fragrances generated over $300 million in revenue throughout 2004.

In 2005, Lopez launched her second fashion label, Sweetface, which was geared towards "high fashion" in comparison to her previous fashion line. She also appeared in a Kill Bill-inspired Pepsi commercial with Beyoncé and David Beckham. In the late 2000s, her restaurant Madre's closed permanently, as did her two fashion lines. In 2011, in the midst of her career resurgence, Lopez became brand ambassador for various brands including L'Oréal, Gilette Venus, Tous and Fiat. She also launched the Jennifer Lopez Collection, a clothing and homeware line with Tommy Hilfiger for Kohl's; the collection generated an estimated $3 billion in sales during its first year. The following year, she launched Teeology, a luxury T-shirt brand. In 2013, she founded the phone retail brand Viva Móvil, which caters specifically to Latinos.

In 2014, Lopez released a range of jewelry, designed in partnership with Endless Jewelry. In 2016, she designed a capsule collection of shoes and jewelry in collaboration with Giuseppe Zanotti. The following year, she was announced as the new face of clothing company Guess, becoming the oldest spokeswoman in the company's history. In collaboration with Inglot Cosmetics, Lopez launched a limited-edition makeup collection in 2018. In 2019, she became the global face of the Coach brand, and launched a collection of sunglasses with the brand Quay Australia. In 2020, after modelling an updated version of her iconic Green Versace "jungle" dress at Milan Fashion Week the previous year, Lopez was the face of the brand's Spring/Summer 2020 campaign, which featured other pieces based on the same jungle print.

Throughout 2021, Lopez focused on investments and creating her own brands. She launched her skin care company, JLo Beauty, released a shoe collection in partnership with DSW, and invested in companies including Hims & Hers Health, Bodyarmor SuperDrink, Goli nutritional supplements and meal delivery service Wonder. In March 2022, she was appointed as the chief "entertainment and lifestyle" officer of the cruise line, Virgin Voyages. That September, she became the global ambassador of Italian lingerie label Intimissimi. In 2023, Lopez launched a spritz brand named Delola in collaboration with mixologist Lynnette Marrero. That year, she partnered with fashion retailer Revolve to design a footwear line, JLO Jennifer Lopez, which was released as three collections in March, May, and June. In 2024, she released a lingerie collection with Intimissimi inspired by her album This Is Me... Now.

Lopez was heavily involved in charitable activities following the September 11 attacks. Joining 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 Amnesty International for her work in Bordertown, which shed light on the hundreds of feminicides in Ciudad Juárez. Lopez described it as "one of the world's most shocking and disturbing, underreported crimes against humanity". That year, part of the proceeds from Lopez and Anthony's co-headlining North American concert tour was donated to the Run for Something Better program, which fights childhood obesity.

Lopez credited Puerto Rican actress Rita Moreno's performance in the musical film West Side Story (1961) as the major influence on her career path and artistry. Moreno was the only performer Lopez was able to identify with, at a time when Latinos were rarely on television. She was also inspired by Barbra Streisand's career as a singer, director and actress. Growing up, she was influenced by Latin music styles ranging from salsa to bachata, and artists including Celia Cruz and Tito Puente, though it was the hip hop song "Rapper's Delight" (1979) by The Sugarhill Gang that she said changed her life.

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." Her other major influences include Tina Turner, James Brown, and Michael Jackson. Lopez has cited Janet Jackson as a major inspiration for her own dance and music videos, stating that she "probably started dancing" because of Jackson's music video for "The Pleasure Principle". She also looked to the careers of Cher, Bette Middler and Diana Ross, and has been inspired by younger artists such as Lady Gaga.

Musically, Lopez is described as a "chameleon" by outlets like Variety and Forbes, having been known to experiment and jump between genres. Her music strongly identifies with hip hop while exploring the "romantic innocence" of Latin music. 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". 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. While mostly English, the albums include some Spanish and bilingual songs such as "Cariño", with Lopez also speaking in Spanish and asserting her Latin identity on songs like "Let's Get Loud". A departure from her previous work, This Is Me... Then blends 1970s soul with "streetwise" hip hop. Rebirth was noted for its "relaxing" atmosphere, while Como Ama una Mujer was characterized as "silkily sedate Spanish Sade worship". Brave and Love? delved further into dance-pop, while A.K.A. and This Is Me... Now saw her return to her R&B roots, though the latter eschews Latin influences.

Described as autobiographical, most of Lopez's music has centered around the "ups and downs" of love, often inspired by her own love life. Lyrically, This Is Me... Then is largely focused on her relationship with Ben Affleck; the song "Dear Ben" was described as the album's "glowing centerpiece". Its sequel album, This Is Me... Now, was informed by her marriage to Affleck, and Lopez's "psychological journey of the past two decade". Como Ama una Mujer features introspective lyrics about romance, heartache and self-loathing. Regarding Love?, Lopez stated: "There's still so much to learn and that's why the question mark." Other recurrent themes in Lopez's music have included her upbringing in the Bronx, social class and women's empowerment.

Lopez has received mixed reviews for her "light" soubrette voice, which critics have described as thin, and overshadowed by her music's production. With On the 6, critics described Lopez's voice as a "sultry purr" and "breathy"; Rob Sheffield remarked: "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." Lopez, who often worried about her singing "not being as strong" as her other attributes, would later credit ex-husband Marc Anthony for helping her find her "best singing voice". Pitchfork described her voice as being "stronger than ever" on This Is Me... Now, while opining 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".

Lopez has been a polarizing figure in popular culture. Andrew Barker of Variety writes that she "exhibits a plethora of contradictions", observing: "Despite a carefully cultivated image as an imperious pop empress in ludicrously expensive outfits, her signature hits bear the titles 'I'm Real' and 'Jenny From the Block'." In 2002, Lynette Holloway of The New York Times described Lopez's image as including "a dash of ghetto fabulousness" and "middle-class respectability" for mass appeal. The media discerned a shift in her public image upon joining American Idol in 2011, with Entertainment Weekly writing: "Gone was her old cut-a-bitch swagger; J. Lo 2.0 is an all-embracing, Oprahfied earth madre." People editor Peter Castro said American Idol made Lopez "a celebrity of the people" whereas before, "there was a huge distance with the American public."

Lopez is widely celebrated for her callipygian figure, which earned her the nickname La Guitarra (the guitar). Vanity Fair described her buttocks as "in and of themselves, a cultural icon". Recounting her experience on early films, Lopez stated: "I've always had costume people looking at me a little weary and immediately fitting me out with things to hide my bottom." She often wears revealing outfits to accentuate her curves. Author Mary Beltrán opined that for Lopez to "unashamedly display her well-endowed posterior during this time period" could be viewed as "a revolutionary act with respect to Anglo beauty ideals". However, she was also criticized for perceived changes in her image upon launching her music career, which included "weight loss and lightening her hair".

Considered a fashion icon, Lopez is known for her sense of style and "breaking fashion rules". She is recognized for both her "bold" red carpet fashion, including fourteen appearances at the haute couture Met Gala in New York City, and her everyday street style, which is "discussed ad infinitum by the fashion press." British Vogue said she "added megawatt glamour to every outfit she wore", with Billboard describing her style as "scantily clad". Lopez's style has been influenced by "women who epitomize old Hollywood glamour like Rita Hayworth", as well as her Bronx upbringing and Nuyorican identity. Described as the "ultimate sex symbol" of the early 21st century, various publications have ranked her as the most beautiful or sexiest woman in the world, including People, People en Español, Vibe, Details, and FHM, with Lopez topping the latter's 100 Sexiest Women list twice. Lopez has criticized "this funny notion in America that you can't be a mom and be sexy", stating: "The truth is that women can be sexy until the day they die."

She has a large following on social media, being the 14th most-followed individual on Instagram and having one of the 50 most-followed accounts on Twitter. On the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s "Music Fuels" ranking, Lopez is the eighth-most-followed musician across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. She is the richest Latin actress, with an estimated net worth of US$400 million.

Described as "one of the most photographed women in the world", Lopez has long been a tabloid fixture, and admits to having a "less-than-perfect" public image. Frances Negrón-Muntaner wrote that by 1999, "Internet chat rooms exploded with anti-Lopez babble" and she became "one of the easiest moving targets for cheap laughs as well as anxieties about working-class 'loud' sexuality and specifically Latino visibility." Much of the media coverage surrounding Lopez in the 2000s "focused on her dramatic private life", with several writers describing her as overexposed at the time, despite her continued success. Media outlets often liken her to actress Elizabeth Taylor, due to her numerous failed relationships and glamorous public persona. Her high-profile relationship with Combs was described as having "defined an age", with Vanity Fair writing that they entered "the pantheon of slightly notorious celebrity couples: Liz and Dick, Frank and Ava."

Regarded as one of the most influential performers of her time, Lopez is often cited by journalists and academics as the most influential entertainer of Latin descent, credited with breaking racial barriers in the entertainment industry. She was described as "the first Latina superstar" by writer Ned Zeman, and the "embodiment of the American Dream" by Robert C. Cottrell in Icons of American Popular Culture (2009). Maer Roshan, editor-in-chief of The Hollywood Reporter, said "Lopez has broken barriers and redefined what’s possible for women and Latinos in entertainment." Often dubbed the "Queen of Dance" by media outlets, she is considered a triple threat performer, and was one of few actors to successfully cross over into music. Rachel Sklar of HuffPost called Lopez a trailblazer, writing: "Beyoncé, Miley, Gaga, any actress who's ever released an album — they are all standing on the shoulders of J.Lo. She was a true triple threat — actress, singer, dancer ... and packaged it sometimes outrageously but always sexily." Lopez is considered a pop icon, with VH1 ranking her at number 15 on their list of 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons, number 16 on 100 Greatest Women In Music, and number 21 on 50 Greatest Women of the Video Era.

The highest-paid Latina actress in history, Lopez's film career has been credited with paving the way for greater representation of Latino Americans in Hollywood, a historically white space. Biographer Kathleen Tracy opined that "Lopez blazed a trail no openly Latin actress had gone before", noting that previous Latina stars cosmetically downplayed their ethnicity and changed their names. Lopez, who achieved "ethnic 'blind' casting" with Out of Sight (1998), is noted by biographer James Robert Parish to have "helped minimize racial boundaries in show business" by deliberately avoiding stereotypical roles.

With her musical debut, Lopez helped influence the Latin pop movement in American music, often dubbed the "Latin explosion" of the 1990s. The Recording Academy called her the "breakout female star" of the Latin pop movement, with historian Roger Bruns describing her as "an influential force in driving a growing Latin cultural influence in popular music" at the time. Ella Cerón of Teen Vogue wrote: "In an era of blonde, bubblegum pop, there was only one J.Lo." She has been credited with paving the way for U.S.-born Latina artists including Selena Gomez, Becky G, and Cardi B, and for Latin American artists to venture into English pop music, including Shakira, Thalía and Paulina Rubio. Along with Ricky Martin, she helped increase the visibility of Latin music in international markets including East Asia and Canada. Due to her "multi-tasking career", she has been described as "the next-generation Madonna", and "the first woman to demonstrate that a Madonna could be a Latina".

Lopez's music has been credited with helping influence the trajectory of 2000s music, including dance music, Latin music, R&B, and pop rap collaborations. Billboard magazine described her as having "helped define an era where hip-hop, R&B and pop all got more cuddly together than ever before". Scholar Miriam Jiménez Román suggested that Lopez, who represents the "often-suppressed" history of Puerto Ricans in hip hop culture, was "able to traverse the difficult racial boundaries". In July 2023, Madame Tussauds New York unveiled a wax figure of Lopez inspired by her performance at the Super Bowl LIV halftime show.

In 2012, Forbes ranked Lopez as the world's most powerful celebrity and the 38th most powerful woman. She was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world in 2018. Lopez's influence has been attributed to her bicultural identity and ability to code-switch. According to Latina magazine founder Christy Haubegger, Lopez was "the first icon that generationally fits" young Latino Americans who followed celebrity culture. Lopez was featured on the first cover of Latina in 1996, with editor Galina Espinoza writing in 2011 that there is "no recounting of modern Latina history without Jennifer". In a Glam Belleza Latina cover story, she would be described as the "Queen of Pop Culture." She has been credited with empowering Puerto Ricans, a group "which has been subdued to different forms of discrimination" since Puerto Rico was annexed by the U.S.