Why J.Lo Is Impossible To Work With
There's a select group of celebs whose names always seem to come up in discussions about Hollywood's biggest divas, and Jennifer Lopez is one of them. The dancer-turned-actress-turned-singer has struggled to rid herself of the shady label for years — a designation that she believes has been unfairly applied to her. When she spoke with The Hollywood Reporter in 2016, J.Lo argued that she's only seen as difficult because she's a woman.
"I was always fascinated by how I could see [a man] being late or being belligerent to a crew and it being totally acceptable, meanwhile I'd show up 15 minutes late and be berated," Lopez said. "And you watch this happen over and over and over again. Like, we're not allowed to have certain opinions or even be passionate about something, or they'll be like, 'God, she's really difficult.' It's like, 'Am I? Am I difficult because I care?'"
The entertainment industry has changed for the better since Lopez sat down for that interview, but not all of J.Lo's past behavior can be explained away by gender bias. There's no doubting that she and her female peers have been held to a different standard, but according to some of those peers, Lopez's reputation as a difficult diva is very much an earned one. Read on to find out why many people find her impossible to work with.
That time Jenny refused to go back to the block
If there's one thing we know for sure about Jennifer Lopez, it's that she loves a good endorsement deal. From alcohol and automobiles to makeup and jewelry, J.Lo has put her name to numerous products over the years, but those deals haven't always worked out well for the brand she's representing. Lopez once starred in a Fiat commercial in which she drove around the Bronx, explaining why her old neighborhood continues to inspire her. Her deal with the Italian manufacturer was reportedly worth millions, yet Lopez apparently refused to actually return to the block she sang about, forcing Fiat to find a body double.
Eligio Cueto, owner of the Mott Haven barbershop seen in the ad, told The Smoking Gun that producers spent a couple of hours shooting near his business. The featured Fiat 500 car drove up and down East 136th Street, but according to the barber, Lopez was not at the wheel. "It wasn't her," Cueto said. "It was a double that looked like her." J.Lo's people refused to comment, but Fiat later fessed up. "As you may know, in today's world, people are increasingly mobile and their work takes them to a variety of locations," the company said in a statement (via E! News). "As a result, we took the opportunity to film wherever Ms. Lopez was working at the time to accommodate her schedule." The scandal was later dubbed the "Fiatsco" in the press.
J.Lo talks smack about other actresses
When a reporter from Movieline turned up at Jennifer Lopez's swanky Beverly Hills mansion to conduct an interview in 1998, he was greeted with what he decried as an "orchestrated" and "deliberate" scene: J.Lo was lounging by her swimming pool, mid-massage, as countless cronies buzzed around the place doing her bidding. The rub-down clearly didn't relieve Lopez of all her stress, however, because the actress seemingly felt the need to let loose during the interview, taking swipes at a number of her industry rivals.
When she was asked what she thought about the actresses with whom she was competing for roles, J.Lo said that Romeo + Juliet star Claire Danes does "the same thing with every character she does," despite the fact that they'd just worked together on a movie (Oliver Stone's neo-noir crime thriller U Turn). Lopez went on to say that she was "never a big fan" of two-time Oscar nominee Winona Ryder, and she also went off on Gwyneth Paltrow, who would win best actress at the Academy Awards the following year. "Tell me what she's been in?" Lopez said during that infamous interview. "I swear to God, I don't remember anything she was in. Some people get hot by association. I heard more about her and Brad Pitt than I ever heard about her work."
Jennifer Lopez insults other musicians
Jennifer Lopez also offered her opinion on fellow pop star and actress Madonna during a candid Movieline interview, claiming Madge was good at the former, but not so good at the latter. "Do I think she's a great performer? Yeah. Do I think she's a great actress? No," Lopez said. "Acting is what I do, so I'm harder on people when they say, 'Oh, I can do that, I can act.' I'm like, 'Hey, don't spit on my craft.'" It's easy to argue that the "Material Girl" wasn't cut out for acting, but at the time of Lopez's interview, Madonna was still riding the Evita wave — the 1996 musical biopic was reviewed positively by the majority of critics.
The Queen of Pop isn't the only musician Lopez has shaded. There's been speculation that J.Lo's short-lived relationship with Drake in 2016 was nothing but a publicity stunt. However, the fact that Rihanna (who's had a somewhat complicated relationship with the Canadian rapper over the years) unfollowed Lopez on Instagram after she posted a pic draped across the Grammy-winner seems to suggest that there was, indeed, some truth to that coupling. Lopez revealed that she and Drake were working on a song together, but working with J.Lo doesn't always end well — she later dissed Drake during a live show in Las Vegas, telling the audience that he was nothing but a "booty call" for her (per Inquisitr).
J.Lo's diva ways reportedly drive co-stars 'crazy'
You can add Cameron Diaz to the list of actresses who have felt Jennifer Lopez' wrath. J.Lo went after Diaz in a no-holds-barred Movieline interview, calling the There's Something About Mary star "a lucky model who's been given a lot of opportunities I just wish she would have done more with." Yikes! Lopez's brutal assessment of Diaz's career trajectory reportedly made things a tad awkward when the actresses were both cast in 2012's What to Expect When You're Expecting.
On-set sources claimed these two did not get along during the shoot. According to Now, Lopez didn't endear herself to Diaz, who allegedly said the pop star was a nightmare to work with. "She's even said that Jen should stick to her day job, meaning American Idol and singing," an insider claimed. "She demands to eat at specific times, no matter what ... she stops work and has an assistant run over to her with a small protein and veg-based meal. It's driving Cameron crazy." Details of the apparent feud also appeared in Star magazine, whose source claimed that the co-stars actively avoided one another. "They don't interact much, but when they do, the tension is thick," the whistleblower said (via Stuff). "[Lopez] just acts as if Cam doesn't exist."
Both actresses denied there was a rift when they appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to promote the movie, which was ultimately panned by critics.
Does J.Lo owe her makeup artist a huge apology?
Jennifer Lopez and celebrity makeup artist Scott Barnes (pictured) go way back. They met in 2000 at a cover shoot for InStyle magazine and immediately hit it off. "She just goes, 'I like you,' I said, 'I like you too,'" Barnes (whose other clients include Celine Dion, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Julianne Moore) recalled when he sat down with Refinery 29 in 2018. "Then she was like, 'What are you doing on Friday?' Even though I was supposed to be working with Kim Cattrall, I said, 'Nothing,' because I just thought, 'This woman is so beautiful, I have to work with her.' She said, 'I'm shooting my album cover, wanna do it?' Two days later, we're on a plane to Stockholm."
The two became close friends in the years that followed, with Barnes (who reportedly came up with Lopez's signature glowing skin look) becoming a trusted member of her inner circle. It wasn't all fun and games, however. During an appearance on The Jeff Probst Show, Barnes revealed that J.Lo once fired him because she thought he'd leaked info about her to the press. "It was like I had the plague," the makeup guru revealed (via Radar Online). When the true source of the leak was discovered, Barnes said he was swiftly rehired, but he never got an apology from J.Lo. "I went right back to work with her, and we just never spoke about it again, which is even weirder."
J.Lo reportedly got a maid fired over an autograph
According to one United Airlines employee, J.Lo's reputation as an impossible diva is 100 percent warranted. Speaking to Star magazine, the flight attendant alleged that Lopez was super rude to him after he innocently asked the famous songstress if she would like a beverage. "I just said, 'What can I get you to drink?' But Jennifer refused to even acknowledge me," he claimed (via Radar Online). "She turned her head away and told her personal assistant, 'Please tell him I'd like a Diet Coke and lime.' She wouldn't even look at me. It was sad, she seems so sweet in her movies." As far as we know the scorned flight attendant didn't get in any trouble, but that reportedly wasn't the case for one German hotel maid who had the nerve to ask J.Lo for an autograph.
Pray Dodaj was a staff member at the luxury Melia hotel in Dusseldorf, Germany during Lopez's stay in 2012 — was being the optimal word. "I am an incredibly big fan so I took all my courage and rang the bell to get an autograph, but I was rejected by two assistants at the door," Dodaj told The Sun. "A day later the cleaning company that employed me at the hotel called and said that Ms Lopez had complained. I was fired right there on the phone." Lopez called the story "hurtful" and refuted that she got anyone fired, though she didn't deny complaining about the maid.
Jennifer Lopez 'always' flirts with her co-stars
Mixing business with pleasure rarely ends well, but if the stories are true, that's never stopped Jennifer Lopez. "You always flirt with your co-stars, it's harmless," she told Movieline back 1998. By her own admission, her love life has been a roller coaster ride. "For me, the relationship journey has been very up and down," she told Harper's Bazaar in 2019.
Perhaps her relationship with retired baseball star Alex "A-Rod" Rodriguez is going well because he is not from her world — J.Lo's former boyfriends and ex-husbands (she's been married three times) all came from the music and movie industries. Lopez's first husband, Ojani Noa, is a former producer; her second husband, Cris Judd, is a dancer; her third husband and baby daddy, Marc Anthony, is a singer and actor. Scattered among those marriages were relationships with music mogul P. Diddy, Oscar-winner Ben Affleck, and backup dancer Casper Smart.
Workplace relationships often complicate matters, and when that workplace is a movie set and millions of dollars are at stake, directors get nervous. How does J.Lo deal with that? She simply flirts with them, too. "That's the best way to deal with these bigwigs," Lopez said when Movieline asked about her relationship with U Turn director Oliver Stone. "I just went in there and we hit it off and I flirted with him, got tough with him, and he just loved it."
J.Lo didn't put Ryan Seacrest's name on the list at her birthday party
Jennifer Lopez got to know American Idol host Ryan Seacrest during her two-year tenure as a judge on the long-running show, but their friendship may not be as close as we thought. The "Dance Again" singer celebrated her 50th birthday in 2019, and she organized a suitably swanky party to mark the occasion. Harper's Bazaar described the bash as "the most lavish birthday party in the history of birthday parties." It took place at Gloria and Emilio Estefan's private home on Star Island in Miami. The likes of Ashanti and DJ Khalid were on the guest list, but her old American Idol colleague was not.
Seacrest reportedly flew to Miami from New York for the party, only to discover that Lopez hadn't bothered to put him on the list. When he tried to enter, the door staff turned him down. Seacrest explained the whole thing on Live! with Kelly and Ryan. "You're not on the list," the bouncer supposedly told Seacrest (via Page Six). "Clearly there's a mistake, she invited me personally," Seacrest replied. The doorman showed him the list. "Well, sure enough, there's Ryan T., and Ryan Z ... There's no Ryan Seacrest." A few phone calls were made and Seacrest — after being told to "wait under the fan" — was finally given permission to go inside. Was this an honest mistake, or a shady move? We'll let you decide.
J.Lo 'went off' on Rosie Perez
J.Lo and Rosie Perez met in the early '90s when the latter was working as a choreographer on the sketch-comedy show In Living Color. A 20-year-old Lopez was one of the numerous dancers who attended an open casting call for the show's dance group, The Fly Girls. Creator Keenan Ivory Wayans reportedly called J.Lo "chubby and corny" and wasn't interested in hiring her, but Perez supposedly vouched for the curly-haired New Yorker. Before long, Perez began to wonder if she'd made a mistake.
"All of the girls were coming into my office complaining how she was manipulating wardrobe, makeup, and me, all to her advantage," Perez said of J.Lo in her memoir, Handbook for an Unpredictable Life (via the New York Post). When she confronted Lopez about what she'd been told, the newbie apparently "went off [like] some ghetto biatch, screaming and pounding her chest." According to Perez, Lopez believed that she was the best dancer there. Lopez reportedly yelled at Perez: "I know I'm good, I'm better than any of these girls and you know it."
The feisty pair talked it out and eventually buried the hatchet — or so Perez thought. When Lopez later made it big in Hollywood, J.Lo supposedly made "disparaging comments" about Perez, who claims that Lopez ghosted her. "I was blindsided," Perez said. "I'd thought we were cool. I called her up. She wouldn't pick up."
Jennifer Lopez reportedly makes ridiculous demands
Most big musicians send riders when negotiating with a venue or organization prior to a gig, but if the stories are true, Jennifer Lopez has made some truly diva demands over the years. According to The Huffington Post, J.Lo was all set to perform at the opening ceremony of the Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket tournament (which has a TV audience of about 60 million) in 2013, but she apparently lost the gig when IPL bosses found out that she was asking for a private plane and numerous hotel rooms to accommodate all of her stylists and handlers. The organizers wouldn't play ball and replaced Lopez with Pitbull.
This demand was nothing, however, when compared to the nearly impossible requests J.Lo reportedly made ahead of her medley performance at the World Music Awards in 2010. The Mirror reported that the singer's rider allegedly requested a helicopter to be kept on stand-by as well as a custom-fitted speed boat and a pair of diamond-encrusted headphones to drown out the sound of the boat's motor — talk about rich people problems! "Her people requested that she have an entire floor of the hotel to herself to ensure she wasn't hassled," an insider told the tab. "Privacy was a main concern so she had a piece of beach roped off, too."
J.Lo thinks very highly of herself
There's confidence, and then there's arrogance, and Jennifer Lopez has walked a dangerous tightrope between the two for years. Traditionally, it's the movie-going public and the Hollywood press that decide who is an A-list star, not the star herself. During her highly contrived poolside interview with Movieline in 1998, J.Lo did away with tradition and declared herself an A-lister. She was probably feeling buoyed by the critical reception to her turn as murdered pop star Selena Quintanilla in 1997's Selena. Veteran film critic Roger Ebert praised J.Lo for "evoking the magic of a sweet and talented young woman" in the biopic, but comments like that appeared to go straight to Lopez's head.
When Movieline asked Lopez why she was a hot property in Hollywood at the time, she delivered an incredibly immodest answer. "Because I'm the best," she said. "I feel I can do anything, any kind of role. I'm fearless." This kind of honesty is somewhat refreshing, but having too much belief in your own abilities will inevitably get under the skin of colleagues and viewers alike. Lopez claimed to have something called "the stardom glow," but not everyone saw it that way. Sure, 1998 was a good year for her, but she certainly fell out of favor with the critics in 2003, when Gigli managed a woeful 6 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and landed Lopez the worst actress title at the Golden Raspberry Awards.