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‘IDIDN’TWANTWHAT
HAPPENEDTOFINISHME’
ASSHEDAZZLESONHER‘IT’SMYPARTY’TOURWECELEBRATE
THEINCREDIBLECAREEROFMULTI-TALENTEDJENIFFERLOPEZ
S
inger, actress, producer, human rights
activist, fashion designer... Jennifer
Lopez has come a long way since she
was plain old Jenny From The Block.
With her ageless appearance and her
endless energy, it’s hard to believe she
turns 50 this month.
‘I don’t drink, smoke,
or have caffeine.
That really wrecks
your skin as you
get older,’ says the
star, who celebrated
curves way before
Kim Kardashian West
made them her thing.
She’s currently
storming the US
with her It’s My Party
tour, released new
music in April and
will lead a strippers’
revenge in her
highly anticipated
film Hustlers this
September. Then
there’s her recent
engagement to Alex
Rodriguez. Jen is
living her best life
for sure!
Born in 1969 in New York’s the Bronx,
Jennifer Lynn Lopez was raised, with
her two sisters, by Puerto Rican parents,
kindergarten teacher Guadalupe and
computer specialist David Lopez.
Imbued with a passion for performing,
dancing and singing lessons paid off with
roles in musical theatre. ‘I grew up poor, so
I knew I had to work hard,’ she has said.
In the early ’90s she was a backing
dancer for Janet Jackson and danced on TV
comedy In Living Color, before her acting
career took off. Thanks to action thrillerMoney Train, pop biopic Selena and 1998’s
Out Of Sight, opposite ‘okay kisser’ George
Clooney, she became the first Latin actress
to earn over $1 million a film.
But Jennifer ‘missed the excitement of
the stage’. Silencing critics who suggested
her switch to pop
was a ‘gimmick’,
her debut single If
You Had My Love
and album On The
6 – named after the
subway train she
used to ride – were
instant hits.
Jennifer’s
curves were in the
spotlight too, and
the plunging green
Versace dress worn
to the 2000 Grammy
Awards remains an
iconic look.
Recalling how her
mother taught her to
embrace her natural
body shape, she
said: ‘Being curvy
or not being 6ft tall
was never a bad
thing; it was actually
something that was celebrated.’ But that
didn’t stop her struggling with her self-
image: ‘I remember thinking I was not thin
enough because I had curves.’
By this time, Jennifer was already divorced
from Cuban waiter Ojani Noa. A two-year
romance with Sean ‘Puff Daddy’ Combs
ended when the couple got mixed up in
a nightclub gunfight, and her marriage to
backing dancer Cris Judd ended in divorce.
This was followed by a romance with
actor Ben Affleck, who
proposed in 2002. But despite
Ben’s cameo in her Jenny From
The Block video and their
shared screen time in movies
Jersey Girl and Gigli, ‘Bennifer’
split in 2004. She described
it as her ‘first big heartbreak’
and later said: ‘For me, the
relationship journey has been
very up and down. But it didn’t
have to do with anybody else
but me – it was about me
figuring out me.’
After the success of her
third album This Is Me... Then,
she embarked on her third
marriage, with long-time friend
Marc Anthony.
Careerwise, things were
moving fast with clothing,beauty and perfume ranges, a Spanish
album and an Amnesty International award.
In March 2008, Jennifer and Marc
welcomed twins Emme and Max. ‘I didn’t
have kids until later and I almost thought it
wasn’t going to happen for me,’ she said.
Motherhood wasn’t going to slow
Jennifer down, though, and six months
later she completed a gruelling triathlon! In
2010, she was thrilled to become a judge
on American Idol: ‘Finally people got to see
that I was actually a person, someone with
a heart. I got to speak for myself for the first
time, and that changed everything.’
Sadly, she and Marc split after a decade.
‘The pain hurt so much,’ said a devastated
Jennifer. ‘But I didn’t want what happened
to finish me. I wanted to come out of it
stronger than before.’
And she did. Not only did her career
continue to flourish but, in 2017, after a
three-year romance with dancer Casper
Smart, Jennifer bumped into former
baseball player Alex ‘A-Rod’ Rodriguez, who
she’d met a decade earlier. She was still in
character for TV drama Shades Of Blue and
recalled being ‘dressed like my character,
like a boy. He looks at me. I say: “It’s
Jennifer.” He says: “You look so beautiful.”’
The rest, as they say, is history. In
March this year, the hot power couple
announced their engagement. And with
Alex’s daughters Ella and Natasha getting
along famously with Emme and Max, they
make for a picture-perfect blended family.
‘We love each other and we love our life
together,’ Jennifer says. ‘The exciting part is
that we’re both very aware of how lucky we
are to have found each other.‘g gJennifer at
the 2018
MTV VMAsFEATURE BY MICHELLE GARNETT PHOTOGRAPHS BY
INSTAGRAM, SPORTSPHOTO LTD/ALLSTAR, WIRE IMAGEOK!Jen’s blended family
with Max, Alex, Emme,
Natasha and EllaJennifer Lopez as
Marissa in Maid
In Manhattan