Jennifer Lopez Trivia: 60 fun facts you didn’t know about the singer!

Jennifer Lopez, also known as J.Lo, is an American singer, actress, dancer, fashion designer, author and producer. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about her!

1.Her middle name is Lynn.

2. She wa born on July 24, 1969.

3. She grew up in the Castle Hill neighborhood of The Bronx, New York.

4. Her parents are from Puerto Rico.

5. She has an older sister, Leslie, and a younger sister, Lynda, a journalist.

6. When Lopez was born, the family was living in a small apartment. A few years later, her parents had saved up enough money to be able to purchase a two-story house, which was considered a big deal for the relatively poor family.

7. At the age of five,  Jennifer Lopez began taking singing and dancing lessons.

8. She toured New York with her school when she was seven years old.

9. Her parents stressed the importance of work ethic and being able to speak English.

10. Jennifer Lopez spent her entire academic career in Catholic schools, finishing at Preston High School.

11. In school, Lopez did gymnastics, ran track on a national level and was a member of the school’s softball team.

12. She excelled athletically rather than academically, competing in national track championships.

13. In 1984, at the age of fifteen, she began dating David Cruz, her first boyfriend.

14. While attending her final year of high school, Jennifer Lopez learned about a film casting that was seeking several teenage girls for small roles. She auditioned and was cast in My Little Girl (1986), a low-budget film co-written and directed by Connie Kaiserman.

15. Jennifer Lopez acted as Myra, a young woman at a center for troubled girls. After she finished filming her role in the film, Lopez realized that she wanted to become a “famous movie star”.

16. To please her parents, though, she enrolled in Baruch College, only to drop out after one semester.

17. During this period, Lopez performed in regional productions of the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Oklahoma!. From there, she was hired for the chorus in a Golden Musicals of Broadway, which toured Europe for five months.

18. She was unhappy with the role, as she was the only member of the chorus to not have a solo. She later got a job on the show Synchronicity in Japan, where she acted as a dancer, singer and a choreographer.

19. Jennifer Lopez was selected as a backup dancer for the New Kids on the Block in 1991 and performed with them during their performance of “Games” at the 18th Annual American Music Awards.

20. Shortly after, Lopez gained her first regular high-profile job as a Fly Girl dancer on the television program In Living Color.

21. She applied for the job after one of the cast members was unavailable to continue with the show.  Out of 2,000 applicants, Lopez made it to the finals. She was the runner-up, but eventually received the role when the winner was unable to accept the job.

22. She moved with Cruz to Los Angeles to film the series and remained a regular cast member until 1993 when she decided to pursue a full-time acting career. Prior to leaving the show, Lopez briefly worked as a backup dancer for American recording artist Janet Jackson.

23. Jennifer Lopez was set to tour with Jackson on her Janet World Tour in late 1993, but backed out as she wanted to do her “own thing.”

24. Jennifer Lopez received her first professional acting gig in the direct-to-video drama film Lost in the Wild (1993), co-starring alongside Lindsay Wagner and Robert Loggia.

25. Later in 1993 Jennifer Lopez signed a deal with CBS to co-star in the television series Second Chances.

26. Jennifer Lopez received her first major big-screen role in Gregory Nava’s 1995 drama My Family, portraying Young Maria.

27. Although her role was uncredited, Lopez received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female nomination for her performance.

28. In November 1995, Lopez starred in Money Train alongside Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, as New York City transit cops. In August 1996, Lopez had a supporting role in the comedy Jack

29. Jennifer Lopez’s debut single, “If You Had My Love”, was released in May 1999, as she began to ready her first album.

30. Jennifer Lopez became the first artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 with their debut single since Britney Spears did so with her single, “…Baby One More Time”, four months prior.

31. On February 23, 2000, Jennifer Lopez, in the accompaniment of then-boyfriend Sean Combs, wore a plunging exotic green Versace silk chiffon dress on the red carpet of the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards. The dress “had a low-cut neck that extended several inches below her navel, where it was loosely fastened with a sparkly brooch and then opened out again,” exposing her midriff and then as cut along the front of the legs like a bath robe.

32. The dress generated controversy and media attention, with images of Lopez in the dress being downloaded from the Grammy website over half a million times 24 hours after the event.[40] Lopez was surprised by the enormous media coverage, declaring that she had no idea “it was going to become such a big deal”

33. In August 2003, Lopez starred opposite Affleck in the romantic comedy Gigli. In March 2004, Lopez had a minor role in the film Jersey Girl, alongside Affleck. Her character, Gertrude Steiney, dies during childbirth within the first 15 minutes of the film. From the intense media scrutiny following the couple’s break-up, it was noted that “they may need to put Lopez in a coffin on the poster if they want anyone to come”.

34.  From February 22, 1997 to January 1998, she was married to Cuban waiter Ojani Noa. Since their brief marriage, Jennifer Lopez has endured legal troubles regarding Noa.

35. In April 2006, she sued to prevent him from publishing a book about their marriage, contending that it violated their confidentiality agreement.

36. While working on her first album On the 6, Jennifer Lopez began dating record producer and rapper Sean Combs.

37. On December 27, 1999, the couple were arrested along with two others in connection with a shooting outside the Times Square Club in New York. They were charged with criminal possession of a weapon as well as stolen property. Lopez was soon exonerated, having had nothing to do with the crime. However, Combs was charged and indicted by a Manhattan grand jury.

38. After leaving Combs, Lopez developed a relationship with former back-up dancer Cris Judd, whom she was married to from September 29, 2001 to June 2002.

39. Following her second divorce, she commenced a high-profile relationship with actor and director Ben Affleck, whom she became engaged to in November 2002.

40. The media began to refer to them as “Bennifer”, and they became a prominent supercouple in the media and popular culture. Bennifer became a popular term, which was eventually entered into urban dictionaries and neologism dictionaries as notable, as the name blend started the trend of other celebrity couples being referred to by the combination of their first names.

41. Following her break-up with Affleck in January 2004, Jennifer Lopez began dating long-time friend Marc Anthony.

42.  Jennifer Lopez gave birth to a son, Maximilian David and a daughter, Emme Maribel, in Long Island, New York on February 22, 2008.

43. The twins were introduced in the March 11, 2008 issue of People, for which the magazine paid a reported $6 million — the photographs of the twins became the most expensive celebrity picture ever taken at the time.

44. Three years later in July 2011, the couple announced their split, with Anthony filing for divorce in April 2012.

45. In October 2011, Jennifer Lopez began dating her former back-up dancer Casper Smart. They temporarily ended their relationship in June 2014, but reconciled several months later.

46. Jennifer Lopez has been influenced by artists such as Tina Turner, James Brown, Michael Jackson, Madonna and Barbra Streisand.

47. Critics have considered Lopez’s soubrette vocal type to be limited, and obscured by the production of her music, while remaining “radio-friendly”

48. Jennifer Lopez is regarded as the most influential Hispanic performer in the United States, having been credited with breaking racial barriers in the entertainment industry.

49. The Record newspaper observed that she was responsible for the introduction of a Hispanic presence in the film industry.[264] In Icons of American Popular Culture: From P.T. Barnum to Jennifer Lopez (2009), author Robert C. Cotrell describes Lopez as the Hispanic version of Oprah Winfrey, calling her a “multidimensional artist who had turned into a financial powerhouse”.

50. In 2012, Forbes opined that Lopez “may be the most powerful entertainer on the planet”,and named her “the world’s most powerful Latino celebrity”.

51. Jennifer Lopez is the highest-paid actress of Hispanic descent, as well as the wealthiest actress in Hollywood as of 2013.

52. As a result of launching a career in music during the late 1990s, Lopez contributed to the “Latin explosion” that was occurring in entertainment at the time.

53. She was featured on the cover of the first issue of Latina in 1996,

54. VH1 ranked Lopez at number 15 on a list of “200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons”, number 16 on “100 Greatest Women In Music”,[276] and number 21 on “50 Greatest Women of the Video Era”.

55.  In 2010, Lopez was honored by the World Music Awards with the Legend Award for her contribution to the arts

56. Jennifer Lopez remains the only entertainer to have a number one album and film simultaneously in the United States.

57. In 2013, she was presented with the prestigious landmark 2,500th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her musical contribution.

58. Furthermore, Lopez was honored with the Billboard Icon Award in 2014 for her contributions to the music industry, making her the first female recipient of the award.

59. She wrote the song “Dear Ben” about her fiancee Ben Affleck and how much she loved him.

60. She named her children, Max and Emme, after the main characters in Dragon Tales (1999).