the biography of jennifer lopez

Jennifer Lopez (I)

• Music Artist

IMDbPro Starmeter Top 5,000 6

• Contact info
• 73 wins & 194 nominations total

Photos 1596

• Producer (produced by)

• Karen Sisco

• Marisa Ventura
• producer (produced by, p.g.a)
• Post-production
• executive producer
• Pre-production
• In Production

• 88 episodes

• producer (produced by, p.g.a.)

• 10 episodes

• 49 episodes
• producer (produced by)

• 35 episodes

• 94 episodes

• Atlas Shepherd

• Jennifer Lopez

• Darcy Rivera

• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• Apple Music
• 5′ 4½″ (1.64 m)
• July 24 , 1969
• The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA
• Spouses Ben Affleck July 16, 2022 - present
• Children Emme Muñiz
• Parents David López
• Relatives Leslie Scholl (Sibling)
• Other works Music video for Big Pun : "It's So Hard"
• 1 Biographical Movie
• 4 Print Biographies
• 3 Portrayals
• 29 Interviews
• 74 Articles
• 60 Pictorials
• 1260 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia Secretly married Marc Anthony on June 5, 2004; all the guests were invited to an "afternoon party", and they were never told that they were going to a wedding.
• Quotes I thought she'd offer me some sympathy. Instead, she said, "Don't you ever call me crying again! You wanted to be in this business, so you better toughen up!". And I did. [to Redbook magazine August 1999, on the lesson in tough love she got from her mother]
• Trademarks Often has dance sequences in her music videos
• Jenny from the Block
• La Guitarra
• La Diva del Bronx
• Salaries Hustlers ( 2019 ) $9,000,000

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Jennifer Lopez

Chart history, billboard hot 100™, i'm real, on the floor, ain't it funny, if you had my love, i'm gonna be alright, latest videos.

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25 Biggest Concert Residencies of All Time

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Jennifer Lopez Ropes (G)I-DLE For Sultry ‘This Time Around’ Remix

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Jennifer Lopez’s Streetwear Choice Includes This Pair of Viral Platform Uggs

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Jennifer Lopez’s ‘This Is Me…Now’ Project Leaned Into Her Multi-Hyphenate Status to Reestablish Her as a Music Star

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Lizzo Says ‘Nobody Asked’ Her to Be in Jennifer Lopez’s Film After Producers Claim She Turned It Down

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• Feb 29, 2024 11:24 am

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Jennifer Lopez Biography

• Jennifer Lopez

actress Born: 7/24/1969 Birthplace: Bronx, New York

Film and television actress best known for her portrayal of Selena, the murdered Tejano singer, in the movie Selena (1997), for which she earned a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination. Lopez started off dancing in stage musicals, and first appeared on the Hollywood scene as one of the “fly girl” dancers on In Living Color (1990). After several failed television series, she appeared in the critically acclaimed film Mi Familia (1995), and has since appeared in various other movies on the big screen. Television credits include South Central , Second Chances (1993) and Malibu Road ; film credits include Jack (1996), Money Train (1997), Anaconda (1997), The Cell (2000), The Wedding Planner (2001) and Angel Eyes (2001). 2003 was not a good year, first, with the end of her marriage with Cris Judd, then the universal panning of the movie Gigli with then-fiancee Ben Affleck. She married singer Marc Anthony in June 2004.

Here are the facts and trivia that people are buzzing about.

Jennifer Lopez: The Impact Playing Selena Had on the Actress' Life

First earning her name as a “Fly Girl” on the Fox TV series In Living Color , Lopez had appeared in a handful of films — Mi Familia (1995), Money Train (1995) and Jack (1996) — but playing the iconic singer was Lopez’s true breakout role, even landing her a Golden Golden nomination for best actress musical in a musical or comedy in 1998.

And it was well deserved. Lopez poured her soul into researching the role — even sleeping in Selena’s bed — to understand the tragically short life of the Queen of Tejano Music.

People protested Lopez playing Selena

When Lopez first landed the role in 1996, the scars from Selena’s death in 1995 were still fresh. Along with that came backlash about Lopez being cast in the role. Among the reasons: that she wasn’t the “right kind” of Latina. “I know a few people were protesting,” Lopez told Entertainment Weekly . “But in Corpus [Christi, Texas, Selena’s hometown], everyone has been really supportive.”

The film’s director, Gregory Nava, added that “it was a little hurtful. [The protesters] should be celebrating that we have an all-Latino cast and that Jennifer Lopez, one of our own, is becoming a star.”

Lopez traveled to Corpus Christi to meet with Selena's family

Despite the criticism — and perhaps spurred on by it — Lopez took a deep dive into understanding Selena’s life.

“Right after I got the part, I knew I would be traveling to Corpus Christi and spending time with her family, but that wasn't going to be for a few weeks, so they sent me tons of tapes to watch,” she told Billboard . “I sat on my couch watching them for days and all of a sudden, the tape cut off on me. I was shocked. And I thought to myself, ‘That's what happened.’ This amazing, beautiful spirit, full of joy and music and so much feeling, was just cut off in the middle of being. It affected me so much and made me realize the importance of what I was doing.”

That symbolism made her commit even more. “It was about portraying her as best I could, to where people weren’t thinking of anybody but her when they were watching,” Lopez continued. “You have to think of the whole story and how you fit into that story and at the same time, who is that character, what makes them tick, all the way down to their mannerisms and what drove them emotionally.”

But watching footage wasn’t enough. She wanted to get to know the family who was still suffering from their shocking loss.

“I soaked up everything,” Lopez said in an Apple Music interview . “I slept in her bed at home. I talked to the whole family. I spent time with them. It can be melancholy and beautiful at the same time.”

The quality family time helped her really understand the innuendos of her life, telling Entertainment Tonight that she got to know “her sister, Suzette, her mother and father, I met her husband Chris and brother A.B.”

"We basically just hung out,” Selena’s sister Suzette Quintanilla remembers. “[Lopez] was just wanting to hear stories about Selena and our lives together and being on the road, and ‘How was this?’ She asked a lot of questions, ‘How was this? How did she do this?’ We watched videos together and I guess, [she] really just trying to vibe our family... not just who Selena was as a person, but us as a whole, as a family.”

It worked. During a later Grammy appearance when Lopez was dressed as Selena, Suzette said, “For a split second, I thought it was my sister.”

READ MORE: Inside Selena's Final Days

Playing the singer taught Lopez to live in the moment

Among the many things that Lopez picked up was the way that Selena lived her life — unabashedly seizing everything in the now.

“She had a sense of living in the moment, living in the present and following her heart,” Lopez told Billboard. “For me, that was the biggest lesson.”

Beyond that, it was just the way Selena carried herself. “The grace with which she handled the business, the grace with which she handled her life, the humor. Her spirit of loving what she did. Her sense of family. That's the tragedy of everything that happened and why she left such an imprint because she was gone way too soon.”

The tragic twist pervades every aspect when looking back upon Selena’s short life. “The fact that she was so young and doing all of these things that people go through that maybe she wasn't ready for. The clothing line she was starting, getting married so young, things like that. I felt she had a sense to live in the moment, that you're not promised tomorrow,” Lopez reflected. “That affected me in my life far more profoundly than the movie did in career terms.”

Performing as Selena at the Houston Astrodome 'freed' Lopez

Getting all of Selena’s iconic looks right was a challenge with more than 30 outfits. “There were so many that I loved,” Lopez continued to Billboard . “The red bustier with the leggings that was her signature. Her jeweled bras. She had them in black and gold and white and red.”

And on top of that, they also had to recreate a concert in the Houston Astrodome. "It was a real concert; 30,000 to 40,000 people showed up, just for her, for that scene, to re-create it,” Lopez recalls. “Afterward, her mom came and hugged me and held me and cried. It was very emotional. It touched the family very much.”

That scene will forever have an impact on Lopez. “For me as an actress, at that moment, I had learned how to really become a performer and give everything I had to the audience. That really freed me up, and it was a very powerful moment.”

Lopez calls Selena her mentor

Even after her death, Lopez felt that the opportunity to learn from Selena’s career affected her own trajectory.

“It was a great thing for her to be my mentor in a way and teach me so much about how to navigate this business, but [also] how to navigate this life,” she told NBC News .

“If she was here, she would be doing what I’m doing right now,” she said. “It’s a sad story. It still gets to me. It really did mark my life at that time to get to know the family and work with them. It was an important part of my life. It still is.”

In fact, it was her learnings from Selena that propelled her to really focus on her music career. “I decided right after that movie to make my first record — and I did.”

She believes there is no 'next Selena'

The film itself also had a major impact on the industry as a whole. “It was a Latin movie, starring a Latin girl, playing a Latin artist and a Latin director. And it was like, ‘She’s worth this,’” Lopez told Variety . “It was a statement to the world.”

Even reflecting back to Billboard on the film’s 20th anniversary in 2017, Lopez notes Selena’s role as a breakthrough artist: “It has always bugged me that people would try to think that there's a ‘next Selena.’ It's like saying there's another James Dean or Marilyn Monroe . People like that don't come along every day... it's a special thing that Selena had. That's why we're still talking about her 20 years later.”

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Pop Culture

J.lo can't stop telling us about herself. why can't i stop watching.

Brittany Luse

Jennifer Lopez's latest film is a direct-to-streaming musical extravaganza called This Is Me...Now: A Love Story. Prime hide caption

Jennifer Lopez's latest film is a direct-to-streaming musical extravaganza called This Is Me...Now: A Love Story.

I had barely cycled through my Usher-Beyoncé-Taylor induced pop culture hangover from the Super Bowl when it was time to receive the latest offering from yet another omnipresent star, Jennifer Lopez. Her newest film, This Is Me... Now: A Love Story, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, is a movie musical/visual album starring and co-written by Lopez herself and directed by music video veteran Dave Meyers. It's a sparkling temple to the self, disguised as a romantic odyssey — and quintessentially Lopez.

The 65-minute film follows the tortured love life of a somewhat fictional version of Lopez, a character I'll hereafter refer to as J.Lo. Like the real Lopez, J.Lo is gorgeous, wealthy and has a reputation as a hopeless romantic on the hunt for her one true love. It's autofiction in the vein of Richard Pryor's Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling , but with the silliness of Mariah Carey's Glitter and the subtlety of the music video for Kanye West's "Bound 2". Days after watching This Is Me...Now , I'm still not sure whether or not it was good, or if a one word summation is even a fair way to assess the hour-long ( and self-financed ) $20 million art therapy session Lopez has produced.

Jennifer Lopez: Then and now

Like many of her most beloved movies, This Is Me...Now is campy, nonsensical, and easy to watch. Still, for every rote monologue from J.Lo about the virtues of forever love, a few rays of Lopez's genuine charisma and onscreen chops shine through reassuringly.

We see J.Lo trace her romantic troubles back to the 1970s Bronx of her girlhood, unpack them in therapy sessions with a practitioner played by rapper Fat Joe, and augment them through a tongue-in-cheek carousel of splashy weddings and couples counseling sessions with various unnamed husbands. Weddings are a perennial theme for Lopez, who has married four times and played a bride on at least twice as many occasions for a film. It's a phenomenon I detangled with critic Rachel Handler in an episode of my show It's Been A Minute from last year.

It's Been a Minute

Breaking down the jennifer lopez wedding industrial complex canon.

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In this latest portrayal, judging J.Lo's relationship foibles from heaven above are members of her own personal Zodiac council, played by Jane Fonda, Post Malone, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Keke Palmer, among others. In between sparse bits of dialogue, J.Lo coos and sashays along to serviceable R&B-tinged songs from her first new album in a decade, aptly titled This Is Me... Now .

One standout sequence depicts Lopez overcoming an abusive relationship. This trauma is represented in literal, harrowing detail, but also artistically, through percussive modern dance moves that recall the push-pull of a toxic relationship dynamic. Here and throughout This Is Me...Now Lopez's dancing is career-best, her staggering athleticism punctuated by evocative choreography and imaginative staging. Lopez is showing all her hard work, and begging us to take it seriously, even as her character lays charmingly about on a J.Lo-monogrammed custom sofa, nursing a broken heart with a Barbra Streisand movie.

Jennifer Lopez performs during the Super Bowl halftime show in February 2020. Tom Pennington/Getty Images hide caption

Jennifer Lopez performs during the Super Bowl halftime show in February 2020.

Seeking validation, by Lopez's account, has been a long-running theme in her life and public works. In her 2014 memoir True Love , Lopez details how she used her relationships to mask low self-esteem. Lopez's need to be taken seriously is also expressed within the first minute of her 2022 Netflix documentary, Halftime , a film in which we see her headline the Super Bowl halftime show, win deserved praise for her role in Hustlers , and perform at President Biden's inauguration . Lopez's lengthy and trailblazing career as a Latina in Hollywood is a wonder in and of itself. And though the legitimacy of her singing career has taken a few hits over the years, she has wrung nearly a quarter-century of superstardom out of what is arguably her third best talent, even after dancing and then acting had already made her a household name.

But it's her naked desire for adulation, as opposed to unbridled artistic expression, that undercuts Lopez's film, and echoes our current celebrity oversaturation. Lopez herself is a marvel of allure and moxie. Her lovesickness, steady ambition, and irrepressible theater kid energy don't repel the public, they delight us. When This Is Me...Now leans into that sensibility, it soars. And when Lopez talks, I'm listening. But when pressed, Lopez, similar to many of her A-list peers these days, seems unable to tell us much beyond platitudes about self-love and upcoming tour dates.

Lopez recently told NPR's Morning Edition host Leila Fadel that This Is Me...Now is her most personal project yet, a tall order for someone who's been a tabloid fixture for over 25 years. But despite Lopez and her personal life being the only subject the film covers, This Is Me...Now doesn't actually shed any more light on her emotional journey than True Love or Halftime did. Unlike Beyoncé's acclaimed 2016 visual album Lemonade , This Is Me...Now drops no apparent bombshells or clear enough Easter eggs to spark flames of social media speculation. The film instead hits all the expected beats — hot, successful woman looks for self-assurance through romance, breakups ensue — while speeding past its more revealing moments without reflection.

Movie Interviews

How jennifer lopez fought for her 'second act'.

In This Is Me...Now , J.Lo exists purely to love and be loved in the most general sense; first by a partner, then by herself, and finally, most importantly, by us.

Perhaps we'll get some deeper insight from Lopez's upcoming documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told , a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this visual album. The trailer teases fat tears, juicy confessionals, and tense rehearsal footage , but it's unclear what Lopez will reveal until the film hits Prime Video on February 27. Once again I'll be watching, amusedly and shamefully. When it comes to the confessional temple of J.Lo, I'm not disciplined enough to look away.

Jennifer Lopez in This Is Me...Now: A Love Story. Prime hide caption

• Jennifer Lopez

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Jennifer Lopez Biography

• First gained attention as a "fly girl" on the Fox hit In Living Color
• Is the daughter of a computer specialist and a kindergarten teacher
• Launched a clothing line called JLO by Jennifer Lopez in 2001
• Also has her own production company, Nuyorican Productions, founded with former manager Benny Medina
• Became the first actress and singer to have a movie, The Wedding Planner, and an album, J
• Lo, make it to No
• 1 in the same week
• Earned $15 million for her role in 2005's Monster-in-Law, making her the highest paid Latina actress in Hollywood at the time
• Landed on the Forbes list of the Richest 20 Women in Entertainment in 2007
• Founded the Lopez Family Foundation with her sister Lynda in 2009
• Launched her first solo world tour, Dance Again, in 2012
• Performed, with Pitbull and Claudia Leitte, the official song for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, "We Are One (Ole Ola)
• 2020 Independent Spirit Awards - Best Supporting Female: nominated
• 2019 Critics' Choice Awards - Best Supporting Actress: nominated
• 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards - Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role: nominated
• 1998 Golden Globe - Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: nominated
• 1996 Independent Spirit Awards - Best Supporting Female: nominated

Relationships

• Emme Maribel Muñiz -- Daughter
• Ben Affleck -- Ex-fiancé
• Cris Judd -- Ex-husband
• Marc Anthony -- Ex-husband
• Ojani Noa -- Ex-husband
• Casper Smart -- Ex-significant Other
• Sean Combs -- Ex-significant Other
• David Lopez -- Father
• Lupe Lopez -- Mother
• Alex Rodriguez -- Significant Other
• Leslie Lopez -- Sister
• Lynda López -- Sister
• Maximilian David Muñiz -- Son

April 28, 2024

Life Story of Famous People

Short Bio » Pop Singer » Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez is an American actress, singer, dancer, producer and fashion designer. Jennifer Lopez became the first Latina to get $1 million for a movie role. She is also an accomplished musician. She is one of the most successful ladies in Hollywood. Her music career has also been on the top level. Her most notable film roles are Selena, Out of Sight, Anaconda, Maid in Manhattan, Shall We Dance, Money Train and Parker. Jennifer Lopez is the most influential Hispanic performer in United States of America. Waiting for Tonight, Dance on the Floor and Ole Ole are few of her hit songs.

Jennifer Lopez was born on July 24 1969. She was brought up in Bronx . Her parents are Guadalupe Rodriguez and David Lopez. They were relatively poor during her childhood. At the age of 5 Jennifer Lopez started music classes. She has an elder sister named Leslie. Jennifer Lopez also has a younger sister named Lynda Lopez. Lynda Lopez is a Journalist. While still in high school Jennifer Lopez was cast in My Little Girl. After that she decided to become a famous movie star. She was a dancer in the series In Living Color. In 1993 Jennifer Lopez decided to become a full time actress. She starred alongside Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson in the Money Train. In 1997 she starred in Selena. This became her breakthrough roles into Hollywood stardom. After that she starred in the blockbuster Anaconda . In 1999 Jennifer Lopez topped the Billboard Hot 100 with her debut album On the 6. After the success of her following album J.Lo she became one of the hottest pop stars in the world. She is currently the highest paid Latin entertainer in United States. She recorded the official FIFA World Cup 2014 song with Pitbull and Claudia Leitte.

Jennifer Lopez became a sex symbol during her rise to fame. She has always been listed amongst the sexiest women in the world. She married a waiter Ojani Noa in 1997. They divorced a year later. Jennifer Lopez then married Chris Judd in 2001. The married lasted only two years. She later married Marc Anthony in 2014. Lopez gave birth to twins Emme and Maximilian in 2008. The couple divorced in 2014. Jennifer Lopez also had a high profile relationship with actor Ben Affleck after her Second marriage. Her net worth currently is around $400 million.

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Jennifer Lopez Height, Age, Husband, Boyfriend, Family, Biography & More

Some lesser known facts about jennifer lopez.

• Does Jennifer Lopez smoke ?: No
• Does Jennifer Lopez drink alcohol?: No
• JLo was the first woman to have her album  and her movie  to be listed as number one and she also was the first Latin woman who was paid $9 million.
• Her marriage with Cris Judd was just a publicity stunt.
• In 1997, her first name was Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.
• She has voice acted in the animated movie Antz.
• She met  Ojani Noa,  a Cuban waiter, on the set of “Blood and Wine”  who later became her first husband.
• She is the only woman that FHM rated twice as the “The Sexiest Woman” .
• Jennifer started taking singing and dancing lessons when she was only five years old.
• When Jennifer moved to Manhattan to learn how to dance, she would sleep in the same studio where she took dancing lessons.
• Before she kissed stardom, she sang for the band ‘ One’, and once she also danced behind the band, The New Kids On The Block.
• She owns a clothing line called JLo by Jennifer Lopez.
• She also owns a production company, Nuyorican Productions, co-owned with former manager Benny Medina.
• She started dating Sean Combs after she met him on the set of her debut album ‘On the 6’. 
• She met Cris Judd, her first husband, at the sets of ‘My Love Don’t Cost a Thing’. 
• She was dating P.Diddy at the time as well. Chris and JLo divorced in 9 months.
• Her romance started with Ben Affleck when she met him while shooting for the film ‘Gigli’. Ben made a huge gesture by putting an ad in the Hollywood Reporter and said that she is admirable for  “graciousness of spirit, beauty in courage, great empathy, astonishing talent, real poise and true grace.”  They were called ‘Bennifer’.
• Ben proposed to her with a 6.1-carat pink diamond ring. After they were engaged, JLo wrote a song “Dear Ben”  to express her love for him.
• Marc Anthony, her long-time friend that she married, called her Lola.
• JLo turned the role of Sara in the Will Smith starer Hitch.
• She was ranked number one on the “Best Bottoms In Hollywood” list of Touch Magazine .
• JLo was on the “En Concierto” tour when she announced that JLo and her husband, Marc Anthony were expecting twins!
• Jennifer was paid $6 million for appearing on the cover of the  People Magazine  with her 4 weeks old twins.
• She took a 15 months break to enjoy her motherhood and came back with ‘The Backup Plan’.
• It’s a very non-traditional family that JLo has built for herself and the kids, including their three step-brothers from two other mothers.

Jennifer Lopez at the Grammy Awards in 2000 wearing the iconic green Versace dress

References/Sources: [ + ]

The enduring power of J.Lo: How Jennifer Lopez marks our lives then … and now

Jennifer Lopez knows how to grab our attention.

Her latest project, an album and accompanying musical film titled “This is Me… Now," has been both praised and criticized, with many in between trying to understand what Lopez’s latest artistic endeavor even means.

Yet the myriad reactions dissecting the project all point to one key fact. Like it or not, we're talking about J.Lo.

“She’s an anomaly,” culture critic Jack Rico told NBC News. "Today, I don’t think it’s possible to fully comprehend and grasp how special Jennifer Lopez is. ... She should be a case study, the same way we have college classes for Bad Bunny or Taylor Swift .”

In a way, the Lopez enigma is at the center of her enduring power as someone who marked a generation of millennials — especially Latino millennials like me.

Lopez has “cracked all of the walls and barriers” society placed on her and more broadly places on Latinos, on women and on people over 50, Rico said. “She’s a defiance.”

People my age don’t remember a time when Lopez wasn’t a big deal — setting trends with her music and dance moves, her acting performances and her fashion choices.

Lopez has worked consistently through the years — she has starred in over 35 movies, released nine studio albums, produced and appeared in countless TV shows, published a memoir, completed a residency in Las Vegas and a world tour.

She also became a fashion icon following her red carpet appearance in 2000 wearing a show-stopping green Versace dress that inspired the creation of Google images .

And those not familiar with her trajectory probably know of Lopez from her highly publicized string of romances and marriages.

So what has she done lately? She spent $20 million of her own money in a multimedia project that leans into her love life, her way.

In “This Is Me... Now,” Lopez takes her sometimes questionable and even eye-rolling relationships and shines on them a spotlight few artists at her level would dare to do, focusing mainly on her rekindled romance with now-husband actor Ben Affleck. The result? She got our attention — and got a lot of critics and fans talking about it.

Taking her string of romances — and owning it

Lopez has said her latest project is her " most honest " one yet, though fans and detractors say she held back on the subject of relationships and her tumultuous path to self-love.

The album sounds like a musical time capsule encompassing her 25-year music career and her lifelong search for her voice and artistic identity.

The film is not quite conceptual nor completely abstract, but something in between, mixing lighthearted and introspective moments to take us on her journey to ... yes, love.

In my view, what “This Is Me... Now” does effectively is showcase Lopez’s confidence as a triple-threat performer: singer, dancer and actor.

While her latest work reminded people like me of her unmatched talent, some say it was a missed opportunity for the 54-year-old to open up at a more personal level, distancing herself from her performer persona and showing off a more vulnerable, different side. 

“The thing about Jennifer, and I think this is where a lot of the criticism is coming from, is that she has not been able to evolve,” Rico said. “You can’t get bigger than what she has done, and I think there’s a part of her that is like, ‘How do I top myself?’”

Yet the recent debate proves that Lopez remains relevant — and is still shifting and influencing American pop culture.

My life's soundtrack

Because “This Is Me... Now” serves as a bookend to her 2002 studio album “This Is Me… Then” — inspired by Lopez’s first engagement to Affleck and eventual breakup — it’s making many of us revisit our own memories of growing up with Lopez.

I can't tell you exactly when I first heard Lopez’s 1999 debut single, “If You Had My Love.” I just know I've always known it. The song catapulted Lopez’s music career following her breakout performance as the slain “Queen of Tejano Music” Selena Quintanilla in the 1997 film “Selena,” which turned her into a Hollywood movie star and helped cement Selena's musical legacy to a younger generation like me.

Lopez then established herself as a mega pop star with iconic music videos and hits like “Let’s Get Loud” and “Waiting for Tonight" from her debut album “On The 6.”

The first album I ever owned was the Backstreet Boys’ 1999 album “Millenium” — who didn't succumb to the boy band craze of the 1990s? But the one I cherished most was Lopez’s 2001 album “J.Lo.”

At 7, I used crayons to label my "J.Lo" album with my name in case I lost it while taking it everywhere in my portable CD player. I couldn't understand much of the lyrics because I only spoke Spanish, but I remember imitating Lopez while dancing to her pop tracks combined with Y2K era electronic sounds, R&B, hip-hop and Latin music influences.

The “J.Lo” album debuted at No. 1. That same week, Lopez starred in the romantic comedy “The Wedding Planner” — which topped the box office.

“When she has the No. 1 record, and the No. 1 movie at the exact same time for all general audiences, it’s nothing short of a miracle,” Rico said. In fact, the milestone made Lopez the first woman to simultaneously have a top film and album on opening week.

As a kid who loved performing and once aspired to be a dancer, seeing a fellow Puerto Rican succeed at this epic scale gave me confidence in my own identity from a very young age.

An icon from the Latin music 'explosion'

Lopez achieved superstar status alongside a few other artists of Hispanic descent who reached global success during the Latin music explosion of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

If there was a Mount Rushmore for the Latin explosion , the faces of Lopez, Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony and Shakira would be carved in it — and maybe Christina Aguilera, who is Ecuadorian American, and Enrique Iglesias, a Hispanic from Spain, if we had more space.

Growing up at this time, I thought it was always this way. But as an adult, I realized it was mostly a specific period in pop culture.

Decades later, Lopez and Shakira reignited this history during their record-breaking 2020 Super Bowl Halftime performance , featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin , two big faces of the new Latin music boom dominated by reggaeton music.

"The Super Bowl was a very revealing Jennifer Lopez moment," Leila Cobo, Billboard’s chief content officer of Latin, told the Pop Pantheon podcast on August 2023. "It showed why she still matters.”

Lopez, a U.S.-born Latina, is inherently bicultural. Her innate code-switching abilities has helped her become a naturally shapeshifting entertainer, a unique quality that's kept her in the pop culture zeitgeist for nearly three decades.

“She can be 40. She can be 50. She can be 85. And she still can pull that off," Cobo said. "Not very many people can do that ... This is not simply someone who’s here for celebrity. I think she wants to transcend that."

J.Lo's — and my — full-circle moment

I no longer buy J.Lo CDs and mark them with a crayon. But listening to "This Is Me... Now" made me think about my own path to self-acceptance and yes, finding love along the way.

I still tease my mother for not taking me to Lopez’s 2001 concert in Puerto Rico , where I lived as a child, because I was too young. She promised she would take me the next time Lopez had a concert in my homeland, but that was the only show Lopez ever did there. For years, my consolation prize was endlessly rewatching the DVD version of the 2001 concert I got as a Three Kings Day gift.

But I got a second chance.

I was recently listening to the new album, where songs like “Can’t Get Enough” let me bask in the joy of being a newlywed, and where “Rebound” and “Broken Like Me” make me reflect on how far I’ve come, and I told my husband about how I still dreamed of seeing Lopez in concert.

He then surprised me with tickets to one of Lopez's shows in New York City, where I now live, to celebrate my 30th birthday this summer.

You could say the full-circle moment shows how Lopez marked my life then … and now.

That's a pretty remarkable journey for Jenny from the Block.

For more from NBC Latino,  sign up for our weekly newsletter .

Nicole Acevedo is a reporter for NBC News Digital. She reports, writes and produces stories for NBC Latino and NBCNews.com.

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Jennifer Lopez is the savior of the future in Brad Peyton directed sci-fi Netflix film, Atlas –and a full trailer has dropped for the film. Written by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite, Lopez stars alongside Sterling K. Brown, Simu Liu, Gregory James Cohan, Abraham Popoola, Lana Parrilla, and Mark Strong.

Atlas is produced by Brad Peyton and Jeff Fierson for ASAP Entertainment; Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell for Safehouse Pictures; Jennifer Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, and Benny Medina for Nuyorican Productions; and Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter for Berlanti/Schechter Films. Samson Mücke, Michael Riley McGrath serve as executive producers.

This is Lopez’s second Netflix outing as she starred in the 2023 film Mother about a woman who, while fleeing from dangerous assailants, must come out of hiding to protect her daughter, whom she left earlier in life. The action thriller was watched by 2.8M U.S. households over its debut weekend, according to L+2D data from Samba TV. 

Atlas debuts on Netflix May 24.

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Ojani Noa Net Worth, Age Jennifer Lopez Husband Ex Wiki Biography

Introduction :

Ojani Noa is a Cuban actor, who is famous for his acting accolades as well as being married to international superstar and singer Jennifer Lopez from 1997 to 1998.

Early Life :

• Ojani was born in Cuba on 11th June 1974. Raised in Cuba, he then moved to America to pursue his goals.
• After reaching Miami, he worked as a waiter in a restaurant for many years before getting a break in the field of acting.
• Later, he garnered significant attention as the ex-husband of American and international popstar Jennifer Lopez

Personal Life & Relationships :

• Jennifer & Ojani had first met when Ojani was working as a waiter in a restaurant in Miami Beach, Florida.
• According to a few sources, Noa allegedly ended the relationship as Jennifer’s career skyrocketed & started overshadowing his own, with Jennifer’s focus shifting to her career instead of the marriage.
• The divorce is seen as one of the most explosive ones in the industry so far, as numerous allegations and lawsuit threats were made from both sides.
• In 2007, Noa threatened to write a memoir revealing personal details about the couple’s time together unless he was paid five million dollars, but the court ruled against him & Jennifer was given five hundred and forty-five thousand dollars instead.
• Later, he also dated Mexican actress Claudia Vasquez, and the relationship was said to have lasted 10 years until the couple separated in 2011.

Acting Career and Net Worth :

• Ojani actually started his professional career as a chef before stumbling onto acting.
• He got his first credited acting job in a movie called Rappin-n-Rhyming in 2002, where he played the part of Dan Valdez.
• In 2004, he was cast in the movie Vendetta: No conscience, No mercy as an Irish thug.
• In 2007, Noa was the executive producer of a movie called Eye See Me.
• He also worked on his own projects, creating a Reality TV series called Million Dollar Matchmaker where he played himself.
• Noa was a contestant on the Mexican reality show, Supervivientes: Perdidos en Honduras in 2008.

Fun Facts, Height and Trivia :

• Noa’s ex-girlfriend Claudia has also filed lawsuits against Jennifer as according to her, Jennifer used false statements in court to file a restraining order against Ojani. The court ruled in Jennifer’s favor and Claudia split with Noa in 2011.
• Back in 2002, Ojani was hired for running Jennifer’s Cuban restaurant Madre’s. He was fired six months later & sued Lopez for alleged breach of contract.
• More recently, he hit the news after Facebook allegedly deleted a photo of him and Jennifer Lawrence from their time together.
• He also focuses on fitness & was part of the show Daily Flash to advise people on dieting and exercising.

After her marriage to Ojani ended, Jeniffer went on to marry twice – First to Cris Judd (from 2001–2003) & later to Marc Anthony (from 2004–2014).

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