How Jennifer Lopez Climbed To No. 1 On The Forbes Celebrity 100 List
now
see photosJon Kopaloff/FilmMagic/Getty Images
Last year on the annual FORBES Celebrity 100 list, a ranking of the most powerful people in entertainment, Jennifer Lopez came in at No. 50. This year, she climbed to No. 1, besting media mogul Oprah Winfrey and pop singers Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Lady Gaga. How did the 42-year-old become the nation’s hottest and most sought after celebrity with an estimated income of $52 million in the last 12 months? Smart positioning and whole lot of hustle.
After a career slump defined by box-office flops (Gigli, Jersey Girl) and disappointing CD sales (Brave, Como Ama una Mujer), the Latina triple threat parlayed her position as a judge on American Idol into hit singles, an upcoming international music tour, a revitalized movie career, new product lines and a growing portfolio of endorsements. The newly single mother of 4-year-old twins may be the busiest woman in entertainment.
It all started with that little singing competition show on Fox. Reeling from lost strongholds like Simon Cowell and failed replacements like Ellen DeGeneres, the addition of Lopez and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler on the Idol judging table worked. Suddenly Lopez was in the living rooms of 25 million people each week. She quickly became known as the nurturing one, and successfully walked the line between “America’s sweetheart” and sizzling sex symbol, nightly stuffed into a glittering array of skin-tight outfits. Everyone was talking about her.
In the last year, Lopez racked up over 23,000 press mentions, graced 46 major magazine covers, topped People’s 2011 Most Beautiful list and became a Glamour Woman of the Year. She didn’t waste the exposure for a second. In May 2011, she released her first album in four years, Love?, with Island/Def Jam Records. She also used the Idol platform to premiere music videos and perform singles. Last year’s “On The Floor” went multi-platinum, according to RIAA, and the music video amassed over 530 million YouTube views.
When Lopez agreed to a second season of Idol, she had leverage, reportedly reupping to a massive $20 million contract, from $12 million the year before. She also became the new face of L’Oreal and signed deals with Gillette, Fiat and TOUS jewelry. In September, she launched a clothing collection for Kohl’s, which the company calls in filings “the largest in our company history both in breadth of content and sales dollars.”
“The exposure from American Idol is huge,” says Jon Albert, CEO of The Albert Company, a leading celebrity talent broker to advertisers. “It can make a career for the contestants and the judges. Advertisers see her on Idol and all the positive publicity–it would make sense that they would go after her. She’s beautiful, talented, multicultural, a movie actress and an entrepreneur. A lot of people like her. That makes her an excellent spokesperson, particularly to female consumers.”
She’s racing to keep up. This month, audiences can watch her in new movie What to Expect When You’re Expecting or pick up her new fragrance, Glowing, which is the 18th scent in a successful decade-old fragrance line with partner Coty Inc. and $2 billion in total sales. Readers of women’s magazines will also begin seeing a major new ad campaign for the perfume that features a nude and glistening Lopez.
“Our launch of Glow 10 years ago was a defining moment for both our company and the industry, reinventing the celebrity fragrance category,” says Bernd Beetz, chief executive of Coty. “Jennifer’s success is a testament to her unmatched work ethic and truly global appeal.”
In June, she will kick off her first international music tour, starting in Panama City. Her fans (12 million on Facebook and 6 million on Twitter) will get even more access to her on the just-launched website JenniferLopez.com, where she writes promotional blog posts and streams video announcements and extras.
She’s come a long way from her modest beginnings as Jenny from the Block, the girl who spent 12 years in all-girls Catholic school in the Bronx, NY, dropped out of Baruch College and got her break dancing as a Fly Girl on In Living Color at age 22. The first career climb, rocketed by her starring role in Selena in 1997 and debut album On the 6 in 1999, fizzled out amid troubled relationships, bad movie choices and mediocre music. The second coming is even bigger, taking her all the way to the top. Where could she go from here?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahellio ... mojo-back/
The Real American Idol: How J.Lo Got Her Mojo Back
This story, by Hannah Elliott and Jenna Goudreau, appears in the Celebrity 100 issue of FORBES magazine.
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 offstage. “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 jewelry, 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.
The downfall can be traced back to 2003, when she also had a litigious breakup with her manager, Benny Medina, who had worked wonders with Mariah Carey, Sean Combs and Will Smith before discovering the Bronx-born Lopez. That same year she engaged in a too-public hookup with actor Ben Affleck that turned her into a tabloid staple and late-night fodder. (A subsequent marriage to singer Marc Anthony recently ended in divorce.) The J.Lo brand had lost its luster.
That was the state of play three years ago when Lopez turned 40, a milestone that in Hollywood’s double-standard vortex often accelerates a career decline for women. Then American Idol came calling.
TV is almost always a huge career-comedown for a star of Lopez’s onetime wattage, especially since the show’s ratings were slipping, down 20% from their high. Linchpin Simon Cowell was out, abandoning what seemed to be a listing ship. When Lopez agreed to become a judge, for one year and $12 million, it reeked of desperation on both sides.
But the risk worked. Last year, when she and Aerosmith rocker Steven Tyler joined the show, ratings popped 4%. Idol humanized her. Viewers who knew only an attention-grabbing siren met a hardworking, self-made, empathetic single mother, who got emotional when contestants did well and when they failed. “I fell in love with her when I got to meet her,” says Tyler, echoing America at large.
“You know that saying, ‘Wherever she goes, there she is’? She’s got that power. She is a force,” says Jimmy Iovine, the Interscope Records titan who mentors the American Idol cast, as he watches Lopez walking with her boyfriend, holding pinkies, after her practice routine. “She brings the whole package—there is very little missing in Jennifer Lopez.”
A key part of this masterstroke: the return of Medina, her “creative soul mate” and “the most consistent man in my life besides my dad,” as Lopez describes him. Back as her manager, he endorsed the American Idol gambit, spearheaded a move to Island Def Jam Records and helped engineer her new role as the face of L’Oréal, in addition to the other endorsement deals. “She appeals to such a wide demographic, almost every age range,” says Stacy Jones, chief executive of entertainment marketing agency Hollywood Branded, ticking off her constituencies, from Latinas to working women to mothers. “There aren’t any more legs to add to it.”
Lopez is moving quickly to *capitalize on these newly engaged audiences. In January Lopez’s production company premiered a Spanish-language talent competition (Latino American Idol, anyone?), Q’Viva! The Chosen, on Univision, with a tour of winners to follow. In May she introduced an 18th scent to her ten-year-old fragrance line, which generates over $100 million in retail sales a year for Coty Inc. and a licensing fee in the $5 million range for Lopez.
In June she’ll start her first worldwide tour. “Nice *timing, eh?” laughs Medina, who has been working feverishly to leverage the J.Lo *resurgence. Right before our chat he could be overheard on his cellphone asking the person on the other end if Shakira could retweet the just released video of Lopez’s new single. He pauses: “The quote is ‘It’s not about the money, it’s about the money.’”
And there will be plenty of money to come. FORBES estimates that Lopez will earn $13 million from the tour. And while American Idol’s ratings have again fallen, Lopez’s salary nearly doubled this year to $20 million. Combine that with her fragrances, fashion and films, and there might be enough dollars and attention to keep Lopez on the top of The Celebrity 100 list next year.
READ THIS AND STAY PRESSED! THIS IS A FACT! OPRAH,GAGA AND BEYONCE ALL HAVE DECREASED SO MUCH FROM 2011 LIST AND THEY DONT DESERVE TO BE #1 LIKE J.LO WHO CAME FROM FLOP ERA STRAIGHT TO THE TOP AFTER 15 YEARS IN THE GAME AND THE AGE OF 42! IF YOU DONT UNDERSTAND THEN... JUST WAIT FOR THE 2013 LIST LOL..
