Jennifer Lopez was homeless before she got famous

In the August 2013 issue of W Magazine, singer and actress Jennifer Lopez reveals that before she hit it big as a Fly Girl on In Living Color, her strained relationship with her mother left her homeless and forced to crash on a couch at a dance studio!

“My mom and I butted heads,” Jennifer explained to the mag. “I didn’t want to go to college—I wanted to try dance full-time. So she and I had a break. I started sleeping on the sofa in the dance studio. I was homeless, but I told her, ‘This is what I have to do.'”

At 18, Jennifer was enrolled at the Ballet Hispanico as well as the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club. Despite not having a place to live, Jennifer didn’t lose focus of her dream, and just months after leaving home, Jennifer’s career was launched.

“A few months later, I landed a job dancing in Europe,” she said. “When I got back, I booked In Living Color. I became a Fly Girl and moved to L.A. It all happened in a year.”

Jennifer was thrilled to be working, but being in Los Angeles was quite an adjustment. “I hated L.A.,” explained the former American Idol judge. “I was asking, ‘Where’s the store for milk? Don’t you guys walk on the street?’ Now I love Los Angeles, but it doesn’t give me strength the way the Bronx did. All the strength that I needed for life, I got from that neighborhood.”

Although Jennifer’s career may have been proceeded by struggles, for her, that was what made her the woman she is today, and even though she isn’t raising her twins in The Bronx, she has every intention of instilling them with the same passion and values that The Bronx gave her.

“I think a lot about teaching my kids to work hard,” Jennifer said. “I’ve learned something about kids—they don’t do what you say; they do what you do. I watched my parents. My dad worked nights, and I was aware of how much he was doing for us. My mom was a Tupperware lady and also worked at the school. I always felt that I couldn’t let them down. And I had a natural discipline from early on. I was always training for something.”

Also in the interview, Jennifer looked back on the infamous plunging green Versace dress she wore to the Grammys in 2000.

“We had looked at a few dresses, and nothing was right,” Jennifer revealed of her and her stylist’s search for the perfect dress. “My stylist said, there’s this one dress, but other people have worn it. I tried on the Versace and decided to wear it anyway. But I was still surprised by the reaction: When I came onstage with David Duchovny, who was the biggest star in the world then, he said to the audience, ‘Nobody is looking at me.’ This loud sound started from the back of the room—it was kind of like a roar, over me in the dress.”

Photos by W Magazine