Jennifer Lopez’s nickname ‘JLo’ wasn’t always that, and the origins of the nickname are rather funny.
The pop artist gave an exclusive interview to Access Hollywood’s podcast The Vault way back in 2003, during which she explained how her well-known moniker came to be over 20 years ago. “I did come up with JLo,” she laughed in the 2003 interview with Access Hollywood. “I didn’t come up with it by myself, I should take that back. People would call me, Jennifer Lo or Jenny Lo,” the Mother actress said.
“I was just naming my album and I said, ‘What am I going to call my album?’ and I had all these like super pretentious names about passion and art and I was like, ‘This is not right for this album.’ So I was like what is this, what is the essence of it?”, she pondered. “It’s a combination of who I am, which is Bronx and urban, and a combination of the music, which is Latin and pop and hip hop — and that meld made me go toward that name,” said the 53-year-old pop star.
The mom-of-two also shared that the nickname was also greatly influenced by her followers. “The fans kind of name you something, they pick it for you and they really did pick that for me, they’re like you are JennyLo, you’re JLo and I just decided to name the album that and it caught on,” she continued.
The JLo moniker may have stuck around for another reason, though. In the same week that Jennifer’s 2001 movie The Wedding Planner , which debuted at the top of the box office, was released, her album J.Lo was also released. She became one of the first celebrities to have a number-one album and a film released at the same time, and her album went on to be rated quadruple platinum in the United States.
The Pati singer is still primarily recognized by JLo now, 20 years later. She said that she doesn’t mind being known by her nickname, but it still comes as a surprise since it’s not her true name and she never intended to use it exclusively.
How did @JLo get her iconic nickname? 🤔 Press play to refresh your memory! Catch another classic visit Inside the #ActorsStudio SUNDAY @ NOON EASTERN! pic.twitter.com/wzFZEuadHj
— Ovation TV (@ovationtv) September 10, 2019
“It’s funny, not that I’m sick of it, it’s not my name, you know what I mean. It caught on and it’s so catchy and people call me JLo all the time, so it’s like you can call me Jennifer or you call me Jenny or you can call me Jen,” she said in the throwback interview.
“I don’t care, you can call me anything that you want. You can call me JLo if you want but it’s not my name,” she said. The actress shared that although she doesn’t care what people call her, she just never intended for this nickname to get stuck. “I wasn’t like, I want to be called JLo, the name of the album was JLo,” she added.
It’s all, how’s JLo? How’s Matthew? No one ever asks about the dumpster that started it all. Happy 20th anniversary to the real 👑 and The Wedding Planner. pic.twitter.com/G4gsIHZ3kI
— Prime Video (@PrimeVideo) January 26, 2021
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