Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lynn Affleck ( Lopez; born July 24, 1969), also known by her nickname J.Lo, is an American singer, actress, and dancer.

With a career spanning five decades, Lopez is regarded as a pop icon and one of the most influential entertainers in the world.

She was credited with helping propel the Latin pop movement in American music and breaking barriers for Latino Americans in Hollywood.

She also impacted popular culture through fashion, branding, and shifting mainstream beauty standards.

Jennifer Lynn López was born on July 24, 1969, in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, and raised in its Castle Hill neighborhood.

Her parents, David López and Guadalupe Rodríguez, 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 López's life and later worked 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 bedroom.

Lopez has described her upbringing as "strict".

She was raised in a Roman Catholic family; she attended Mass every Sunday and received a Catholic education, attending Holy Family School and the all-girls Preston High 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, 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 began her career as a dancer, making her television debut as a Fly Girl on the sketch comedy series In Living Color in 1991.

She later rose to prominence as an actress, with leading roles in the films Selena (1997), Anaconda (1997) and Out of Sight (1998) establishing her as the highest-paid Latin actress.

She successfully ventured into the music industry with her debut album On the 6 (1999).

In 2001, she became the first woman to simultaneously have the number one album and film in the United States with her second album J.Lo and romantic comedy The Wedding Planner.

She has since become known for starring in romantic comedies, including Maid in Manhattan (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), and Monster-in-Law (2005).

Lopez released two albums in 2002: J to tha L–O! The Remixes and This Is Me... Then, the former becoming the first remix album to top the US Billboard 200.

Media scrutiny and the failure of her film Gigli (2003) preceded a career downturn.

Her subsequent albums included Rebirth (2005) and Como Ama una Mujer (2007), the latter of which had the highest first-week sales for a debut Spanish album in the United States.

In the latter 2010s, she performed a concert residency, starred in the police drama series Shades of Blue (2016–2018), served as a judge on World of Dance (2017–2020), and garnered critical praise for her role in the crime drama Hustlers (2019).

She has since starred in the films Marry Me (2022), The Mother (2023) and This Is Me...Now: A Love Story (2024), the latter of which accompanies her ninth studio album.

With over 80 million records sold, Lopez's most successful singles include: "If You Had My Love", "Waiting for Tonight", "Let's Get Loud", "Love Don't Cost a Thing", "I'm Real", "Ain't It Funny", "Jenny from the Block", "All I Have", "Get Right", and "On the Floor".

Her accolades include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Billboard Icon Award and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award.

She has been ranked among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time and the World's 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes.

Her other ventures include a lifestyle brand, beauty and fashion lines, fragrances, a production company and a charitable foundation.

In 2011, Lopez returned to prominence as a judge on American Idol and released the album Love?.