Jennifer Lopez : biography
Eighth studio album and other ventures (2013)
RedOne is the executive producer of Lopez’s upcoming eight studio album, which he states will be "very special" for combining all of her genres including urban/hip hop, dance, rhythmic and Latin. The album, currently still being recorded, will be released in November 2013. "Live It Up" featuring Pitbull, released on May 8, 2013, serves as the upcoming single to Lopez’s album, for which Lopez has moved to Capitol Records and RedOne’s 2101 Records to release. Lopez starred alongside Jason Statham as Leslie in the crime thriller Parker, which was released on January 25, 2013. Her performance was positively reviewed, with The Chicago Tribune commending the role for giving Lopez "an opportunity to be dramatic, romantic, funny, depressed, euphoric and violent. The audience stays with her all the way". However, the film under-performed at the box office. On February 10, Lopez gained widespread notoriety for wearing a "daring" black dress at the Grammy Awards which revealed her entire right leg and hip; despite a conservative dress code which had been issued by the CBS Network earlier.
On May 25, Lopez was announced as the chief creative officer of nuvoTV. Furthermore, Lopez has founded the mobile phone retail brand Viva Móvil, which is catered specifically for Latinos. Lopez has stated that she wants to empower the Latino community through these media ventures, stating: "We’re realizing our power. We’re realizing that we matter here. You know, we’re not just, you know, the guys working behind the scenes in the kitchens and as a plumber". Lopez made a "strong" political stance according to Daily Mail, lobbying for more Hispanic diversity on television, stating: "[We’re] growing as a community and we’ve come into a place where we deserve to be considered and served and catered to". Inspired by her homosexual aunt who had recently died, Lopez signed on as executive producer of the television series The Fosters, which is about a same sex couple raising a family. The show premiered on ABC Family on June 3, 2013, and has since been a ratings success for the network. Later that June, Lopez performed at the birthday of Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Doing so, she garnered widespread backlash for performing for the leader of a "repressive, authoritarian regime", with the Human Rights Foundation expressing disappointment. The public also expressed their fury with a number of posts on social media. Lopez’s publicist hastily released an apology, stating that she would not have attended "had there been knowledge of human rights issues" in the country.
Early life
Jennifer Lynn Lopez was born on July 24, 1969, in the Castle Hill neighborhood of The Bronx, New York. The middle child of Puerto Rican parents Guadalupe Rodriguez and David Lopez, she has an elder sister, Leslie, and a younger sister, Lynda. David worked the night shift at the Guardian Insurance Company, before becoming a computer technician at the firm, while Guadalupe was a homemaker. 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. At the age of five, Lopez began taking singing and dancing lessons. She toured New York with her school when she was seven years old. Her parents stressed the importance of work ethic and being able to speak English. They encouraged their three daughters to put on performances at home; singing and dancing in front of each other and their friends so that they would stay "out of trouble". Lopez spent her entire academic career in Catholic schools, finishing at Preston High School.Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2004 In school, Lopez did gymnastics, ran track on a national level and was a member of the school’s softball team. She excelled athletically rather than academically, competing in national track championships. In 1984, at the age of fifteen, she began dating David Cruz, her first boyfriend.
While attending her final year of high school, 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. 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". To please her parents, though, she enrolled in Baruch College, only to drop out after one semester. She told her parents her dream of becoming a movie star, but they ensisted that it was a "really stupid" idea and that "no Latinos did that". The differences in opinions led Lopez to move out of their family home and into an apartment in Manhattan. 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. 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.
