Over 40, with more bombs than an artillery range, Jennifer Lopez seemed washed up. Then American Idol gave her a second chance, which she’s taken all the way to the top of our Celebrity 100
It’s 9:30 on a Thursday night in Los Angeles, and Jennifer Lopez is on the giant American Idol stage, about to strip off her white terry cloth bathrobe. Practicing for a performance of her upbeat new single, “Dance Again,” which will appear on the following week’s Idol, the 42-year-old reveals a rhinestone body suit gilded in a peacock palette. Casper Smart, her 25-year-old boyfriend and dance partner, puts his hands on her shoulders, hips, thigh and then snaps her around to face him, her caramel hair teased beach-sexy silhouetted against magenta lasers.
“That’ll sell tickets,” whispers Randy Phillips, head of AEG Live, who is producing Lopez’s upcoming tour, as he watches just off-stage. “I don’t mean to be crass, but it’s true.”
Actually, anything Lopez will sell right now. In the last year she graced 46 major magazine covers, topped People’s 2011 Most Beautiful list, signed deals with L’Oréal, Gillette, Fiat and TOUS jewellery, and launched a Jennifer Lopez collection of clothing for Kohl’s. Besides judging Idol, she’s released her first album in four years, Love?, and picked up three movie roles (What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Ice Age: Continental Drift and Parker, which is due out in 2013). In the past 12 months, Forbes estimates, she raked in a whopping $52 million—enough money, when combined with her media omnipresence, to complete a remarkable comeback. Last year, Lopez was number 50 on Forbes’ annual Celebrity 100 list—this year, she’s number one.
“I’m a little bit tired now, I’m not going to lie,” says Lopez. “We’ve been rehearsing, doing Idol, promoting the movie. It’s a lot of stuff. The kids. But I feel really in the zone.”
Even two years ago it was quite the opposite. Her meteoric career—more than 40 million albums sold, paced by Billboard-toppers like “If You Had My Love,” “Ain’t It Funny” and “Jenny From the Block,” and 23 movies, including The Wedding Planner and Maid in Manhattan—had been felled by flop after flop. Her last two albums, Como Ama una Mujer and Brave, both released in 2007, sold fewer than 400,000 units combined, prompting a split with her longtime label, Sony. Jersey Girl, Angel Eyes, Enough and Gigli were box-office disasters of historic nature. The style icon’s initial fashion lines—Just Sweet and Sweetface—shut down in 2008 and 2009, respectively, leaving her only her fragrance brand, Glow.
(This story appears in the 06 July, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)