Be that as it may, Lopez, who was wearing a long-sleeve white trim minidress and dark softened cowhide over-the-knee high-heel boots, showed up shockingly new. "I'm totally worn out simply taking a gander at all that you do," Matt Lauer, the show's host, said to her before their on-camera meet. He then left her and her seven-part group—including her closet, hair, and cosmetics glitz squad, her chief, her creating accomplice, a marketing specialist, her producing partner, a publicist, and one very handsome bodyguard—in the small dressing room.The Today show is, truth be told, a maze of sets scattered over various floors of a working in Rockefeller Plaza. Tina Fey and her escort go by on their approach to do a portion, and a brawny male culinary expert in a smock remained in a corner. "The previous evening was somewhat insane—everybody was pulverizing on Anthony," Lopez said, alluding to her bodyguard, as she sat down on a love seat. The Watch What Happens Live appearance had commenced a three-day special barrage for Lopez's especially full program of tasks: the last period of American Idol, on which Lopez was a judge, was going to end; she has a three-year residency at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, where her party indicate resumes May 22; and Shades of Blue, a cop show on NBC, of which Lopez is a maker furthermore the star, had recently been gotten for a moment season. All that, but then the earlier night, the primary theme, as it frequently is with Lopez, had been her astounding self. "Do you think the Kardashians stole your stick with having an incredible ass?" Andy Cohen, the host, asked on air. Lopez grinned. "I think I made ready for them," she said. "Simply one more development that I've given to the world!"
There's a focal polarity with Lopez: At 46, she's both captivating and perpetually enterprising: a celebrity main street star who convincingly depicts a solitary, industrial mother of a 16-year-old on TV. Besides, relationships with effective men as fluctuated as Affleck, Sean "Puffy" Combs, and her ex, the artist Marc Anthony, have all played out in broad daylight, making her appear on the double considerable and receptive—a sort of individuals' diva. "I've been in the crush and the diversion for quite a while. At one point, individuals regard you when they see you tumble down and get go down. The more you're in this life, the more they praise your triumphs." Lopez stopped. "With regards to work, I never get drained. In any case, with individual disappointments, I have thought, This is too hard. At the point when my marriage finished, it was difficult to discover pardoning. It wasn't the fantasy that I had sought after, and it would have been less demanding to fan the blazes of disdain, frustration, and outrage. In any case, Marc is the father of my youngsters [8-year-old twins], and that is failing to go away. In this way, I need to work to make things right. What's more, that is, by a wide margin, the hardest work I do."
It was the ideal opportunity for Lopez's meeting, and her group strolled onto a void kitchen set to watch her on a screen. Lauer, thin and exquisite in a dark pinstripe suit, got some information about her pressed timetable. "What's more, you look awesome," he spouted. "If you don't mind let me know where you shroud the time machine?!" He murmured. "I simply need one hour with your time machine." Lopez, who does look remarkably young, smiled and demurred. Her famous derriere aside, she is petite and fine-boned. (“When I first came to Los Angeles, someone told me I would be a star because of my tiny ankles and wrists,” she later admitted. “They said that was the key to it all.”) Lauer persisted, fishing for the secret to Lopez’s stamina. “As a kid,” she said finally, “I would hear the grown-ups talking in the next room, and I wanted to find out what they were doing and then do it. I always had a fear of missing out.”
Lopez, who grew up in the Bronx, got her big break—when she was 22—as a Fly Girl dancing on the TV show In Living Color. She moved to L.A. and six years later was cast as the lead in a biopic about Selena Quintanilla Perez, the Tejano pop star who was murdered by the former head of her fan club. Selena was a box-office success, and Lopez became one of the first Latina actresses to cross over to a mainstream audience. She has always been conscious of her core Hispanic fan base, so that day her next stop on the interview circuit was Telemundo studios, across the street from the Today show That sounded easy enough, but Lopez cannot cross the street without creating instant mayhem. “Let’s go,” she said, wrapping a gray tweed coat with a fur collar tightly around her. Lopez walked swiftly, with her bodyguard at her side, but within seconds, a loud mob had gathered out of nowhere and was moving toward her. Lopez was polite, but she didn’t stop. The speed of the onslaught was unsettling. “It’s been like that since Selena,” Lopez said after she was safely inside her Telemundo dressing room. “I never thought about fame until then. After that film, I would have panic attacks. I remember walking down the street, and someone yelled, ‘Jennifer!’ and I didn’t know who it was. I ran home. From that point forward, I realized I couldn’t be alone in public. I don’t think I’ve been alone on the street in over 20 years.” Following the short Telemundo interviews, which were conducted in Spanish, everyone returned to the Today studio for a segment with Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. This time, Lopez made the short trip below street level, around the skating rink. She changed into a 1950s-style gray dress with a tight bodice and flared skirt. “Last time I was here, they asked me who is better in bed—dancers, musicians, or actors? I said, ‘Dancers!’ ” Lopez looked half-annoyed and half-amused. Casper Smart, her on-and-off boyfriend since 2011, is a dancer and actor. “Musicians are too self-absorbed. They are too concerned with themselves to be great in bed.” This might have been a dig at her ex-husband. He and Lopez were a golden couple in the Latino community. “I hung in there for seven years,” Lopez elaborated. “I knew very quickly that it wasn’t the right thing.” Smart has his own house but seems very devoted to Lopez and her kids. “We got together and broke up and are now together again. I still think about getting married and having that long life with someone. I love the movie The Notebook. A dream of mine is to grow old with someone.”
Lopez headed downstairs to the main Today set. In an effort to evoke her TV show, a bed had been made with sheets in shades of blue, and, further belaboring the tie-in, Lopez, Gifford, and Kotb were eating blueberries from a blue bowl. All three women sat on the bed (“We’re in bed with J. Lo!”) and asked tame questions submitted by fans via Facebook. “If you didn’t have your career, what would you do?” Kotb asked. “I would be a painter,” Lopez said. “I can’t paint. But I feel I could learn anything if I worked hard enough. Never say never!”
After a quick goodbye hug, Lopez and company headed to an underground garage, where two black SUVs waited to take them to the set of Wendy Williams’s syndicated talk show in Chelsea. Williams is a favorite of Lopez’s mother’s. “She watches her every day,” Lopez said as we made our way down Fifth Avenue. Williams used to be an outspoken radio personality, and her show, which is geared toward urban women and tries to be provocative, is not the usual stop for a star of Lopez’s stature. But the appearance is part of her mass attack, high/low strategy. This afternoon, she was scheduled to tape Late Night: Seth Meyers; it’s doubtful that the two audiences overlap. “We don’t want to leave anyone out,” Benny Medina, her manager, said.
Lopez’s look was a chic black openwork dress with a prim white collar and black pumps; her hair was pulled back into a bun. Williams wanted to talk only about her love life: “Last time you were on the show, you were totally single.” Watching from the dressing room, Lopez’s publicist was seething. “She’s supposed to ask about the show, about Vegas,” she hissed. Lopez, however, was in control: “Wow, Wendy—you really look great!” she said, deftly changing the subject. “You really have to come to my show in Vegas!”
By 1:30, Lopez was tucked into a booth in the café at Pier 59, a photo studio, and she was starving. She had ordered a mozzarella-and-prosciutto panini (no tomatoes!), but because she had a two o’clock appointment to visit a potential school for her kids, she would have to take the sandwich to go. I asked her if the nonstop pace ever felt overwhelming. “I do have trouble saying no,” she replied. “It’s hard for me not to imagine doing everything I am asked to do. Even if I hear a song that someone else has done or watch a film that someone else is in, I think, Oh, I would do it like this. Or, I wish I could do it like that. Luckily, I love to work.”
Since she joined American Idol, in 2011, Lopez has enjoyed a different relationship with the public. Her fans see her as more accessible, genuine, and likable. “It has been easier,” she said. “People may now think I’m ‘nice,’ but they still act surprised when I’m smart. It’s a man’s world, and, truly, people in a business setting do not value a woman as much as a man. I feel like I’m constantly having to prove myself. If a man does one thing well, people immediately say he’s a genius. Women have to do something remarkable over and over and over. And, even then, they get questions about their love life.” She shrugged. “People underestimate me. They always have, and maybe that’s for the best. It’s fun to prove them wrong.”
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