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Jennifer Lopez has shown her versatility in art forms like music, dance, and acting. Lopez began with lofty aspirations, and over years of phenomenal success, she has managed to grow an impressive $150 million.

J.Lo has been a singer, a dancer, an actress, a businesswoman, a fashion designer, and a TV producer. After having had a remarkably long-lasting career, Lopez has been listed as one of the Hollywood industry's biggest A-list celebrities.

Life Before Becoming a Celebrity

Jennifer Lynn Lopez or popularly called J.Lo, was born in 1961 in the Bronx. Ever since she was a child, the star dreamed of being a performer and was encouraged to start taking dance and music lessons from age five. She also participated in small-scale stage theatricals to test herself on the stage.

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Lopez was also quite athletic from a young age. She attended Catholic schools all her life and was part of extracurricular activities like gymnastics. J.Lo participated in running activities and was also on the softball team. The actress even made her debut in the film industry when she was in the final year of high school.

A Career in Dancing

Jennifer's parents, Guadalupe Rodriguez and David Lopez, wanted her to pursue academics. She enrolled at Baruch College to make them happy, but Lopez was not built for academics. She had other talents, especially in fine arts, and decided to drop out after the first semester.

Later, when she took a call to pursue dancing and built a career in it, she began falling out with her parents. J.Lo had to move out of her home to Manhattan to pursue something big in acting and dancing. Success and recognition were at her doorstep as soon as she started following her dreams. Her first performances were Jesus Christ Superstar and Oklahoma!.

The star then landed the opportunity to tour Europe for five months when she got hired in Golden Musicals of Broadway's chorus team. According to Celebrity Net Worth, her subsequent success was landing a job as a professional dancer and choreographer at Japan's famous show titled 'Synchronicity.'

The next stepping stone to her success was when she got hired as one of the backup dancers for New Kids' music band on the Block. It is, however, believed that her big break in dancing was through her performance as a fly girl on a TV show by Fox called 'In Living Colors.'

A Career in Acting

Jenny From The Block had her first breakthroughs in showbiz through acting. When she was about 16 years old, she acted in her first movie, My Little Girl (1986), although it was not a leading role. She acted in minor roles on the big screen from 1993 to 1995. J.Lo's first feature-length film was titled Mi Familia, or My Family, a critically acclaimed movie released in 1995. It was later that she tried out her luck in music.

Lopez acted in several well-known movies such as Anaconda, Out of Sight, The Wedding Planner, and An Unfinished Life. But her big break in the movie industry came in 1997 with the opportunity to star in a biopic called 'Selena,' a biopic on the Tejano singer named Selena. According to The Things, she also received an award for her performance in 'Selena.'

A Rocking Music Career 

After beginning to appear in movies in the late 1980s, J.Lo started to gain so much fame that she was soon one of the highest-earning Latina performers in the film industry by the end of her acting career. The timing was just right for her as she was simultaneously gaining fame as a pop artist in the music industry.

The star soon became a recognized talent in music with her first album titled 'On The 6.' this debut album became a major hit, selling over 8 million copies after going platinum. Lopez's second album, titled J.Lo after her nickname and released in 2001, was a subsequent hit and sold about 270,000 copies.

J.Lo's past relationship with actor and director Ben Affleck received a lot of attention during its time. She even dedicated her third album to him. It was titled 'This Is Me… Then' and it came out in 2002. One of the singles called "Jenny from the Block", got particular acknowledgment from MTV news that called it the best song from the album. Among several of her albums that have been released so far, there is also one in Spanish.

Jennifer Lopez's music career has significantly contributed to her great net worth of $150 million. Her Las Vegas residency concert show in 2015 earned her an extraordinary sum of about $100 million.

The American artist is also a business entrepreneur; she has made some fancy bucks from her J.Lo clothing line. According to Biography, she has also been a judge on American Idol and reportedly earns a jaw-dropping $40 million annually.

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Sources: Biography, The Things, Celebrity Net Worth, Britannica