People do lots of things to anesthetize themselves in moments like these. Some people do drugs, some drink, and some go out and party. I get that, but I’ve never been one to do those things. No, my way of anesthetizing the pain was different. I sought out comfort in another person, tried to find someone who could make me feel loved and wanted in my loneliest hour.
And that was the moment when Marc reappeared in my life.
Marc and I had been friends for a number of years. We’d worked together on a few songs, and we’d sung a duet together for my first record, titled “No Me Ames” (ironically, “Don’t Love Me” in Spanish). Right from the beginning, he never made it a secret that he liked me. He was warm and funny, a brilliant singer and artist who knew how to make me feel special. But the best thing about him, the thing that I loved the most, was that no matter what, he always knew how to make me laugh. I had always liked Marc, finding comfort in his humor and his easy way with people. He was confident and strong, he was so sure of everything, and at this moment, when I felt so lost, so broken and alone, there he was.
We thought that this was where everything was supposed to lead, that we were meant to end up together. All the heartache and pain of my recent breakup couldn’t have been for nothing, could it? Maybe I had to go through the bad so I could end up with the person I was meant to be with all along.
After all, the first time I ever met Marc in 1998, backstage while he was performing on Broadway, his opening line to me had been: “One day you’re going to be my wife.” (True story.)
We make our own choices . . . and I chose to believe that Marc and I were meant to be together—that destiny was stepping in. In that moment, I needed to believe that; I needed to believe in something. The reality was, I didn’t want to be alone—so when Marc was there, when he met me with his big smile, his heart on his sleeve, and his arms open wide, I was more than happy to let myself fall into them. I had always liked him, but now that he was coming to my rescue in my time of need, he was my knight in shining armor and I realized I loved him too. This had to be the start of my fairy tale.
And from there, it didn’t take long for us to decide to get married.
Thinking back, maybe deep down I knew that this was a Band-Aid on the cut, that my wound hadn’t been stitched or healed. But I pushed all that to the back of my mind. Because life takes unpredictable twists and turns, right? And you’ve just got to go with what you feel is best in the moment.
In that moment, Marc was the guy who swooped in and made me feel loved at my lowest point. I loved him for that, and I felt like I could love him forever. After all the turmoil, I felt like I had found my rock, the man whom I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
I think you need to take some time
To show me that your love is true
—“LOVE DON’T COST A THING”
FINDING STRENGTH BEYOND YOUR LIMITS
When we first started doing rehearsals for the Dance Again tour, my body almost couldn’t take it. Dancing all the time, working on all these different moves, different set pieces . . . Oh my God, I was so sore at the end of each day. My muscles were tight, my whole body was aching, and I’d kneel on the floor in the shower and let the water beat down on my back.
I knew if I pushed through the pain, my body would get used to it. And soon I would get stronger, and feel better, and get to be in amazing shape. Because once you build up that strength and stamina, you end up feeling better than you ever could have imagined. By the end of a tour, you feel like you can jump over buildings. But to get to that point, first you have to push through the pain.
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That’s kind of how I approached my relationship with Marc. I never thought, Maybe I rushed into this, or Maybe we’re not the best people for each other. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe we were too different. I wouldn’t let myself think that. I couldn’t. Instead, I tried to convince myself that it was all going to work out fine if I could push through the rough spot.
I think of the days when the sun used to set
On my empty heart all alone in my bed
Tossing and turning, emotions were strong
I knew I had to hold on
—“WAITING FOR TONIGHT”
Marc and I weren’t the only ones who really wanted this marriage to work. Our fans were invested in it too. They wanted to see it last. Marrying Marc was like the happy ending, the twist in the story that turned me back in people’s minds from J.Lo the Diva to Jennifer Lopez, married woman. “Bennifer” was gone, and now there was just Marc and Jennifer, the couple that was meant to be. I didn’t want to give that up.
Because now I had lined up everything I needed for the perfect Big Hollywood life—the movies, the records, the glamour—and now the marriage that would really last forever, with the man who’d rescued me when I was lost.
During this whole period of my life, everything felt like a hurricane, and that’s how I wanted the opening of the show to feel. It was exciting and moving and loud . . . and it was scary.
I knew people wanted to see the same dancing and choreography they’d seen in the videos for all these songs—so that’s what we gave them, but with bigger arrangements, more dancers, a bigger stage, so it felt to the audience how it felt to me. We were taking something old and making it exciting and fresh. It was the perfect opening. Our eight male dancers started out in those classic tuxedos, with top hats and canes, dancing like they’d stepped out of a Fred Astaire movie. But then, as we moved deeper into the set, the tone began to change.
Little by little, the hats came off, the jackets came off, and then the shirts came off too. We started to literally bare ourselves here. Now there were eight shirtless guys in bow ties and slacks, and the mood started changing. It was about to get . . . interesting.
That’s when we go to what Ana—one of my best friends and the photographer for the Dance Again tour—called “the fainting transition” of the show: “Waiting for Tonight” accompanied by a beautiful, electrifying laser show. This was where things got very sexy and a little dangerous. All these elements combined created an intense atmosphere. Whenever we performed this part of the show, people started falling out left and right, fainting in front of the stage, right in front of me as I sang.
Every night, I would see them fall, and they’d be carried off and revived backstage. At first it freaked me out—Big Hollywood was out of control! And the funny thing is, that seemed right. Because that was how it had felt in real life . . .
SET LIST
“Goin’ In”
The BX medley: “I’m Real,” “All I Have,” “Feelin’ So Good,” “Ain’t It Funny”
“Jenny from the Block”
I lost some confidence. I almost lost my way.
I had to go home—to my roots, my upbringing, my inspiration.
That’s where I found the answer.
JENNY FROM THE BLOCK
REDISCOVERING DANCE
I had given the audience the big glamorous Hollywood-movie-star opening. That’s how the world saw me. But where was I to go from there? To answer that question, I had to ask myself, Who am I really? I knew, but for the show, I had to revisit the place that inspired my passion: Castle Hill Avenue in the Bronx. That was my neighborhood, the place where I grew up hearing hip-hop, salsa, R&B, pop, and every other kind of beat, all while walking down the block. Our neighbors were so diverse—Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, African-Americans, Italians and Irish—and everybody was scraping and clawing, trying to get by.
My mom worked two jobs and my dad worked the night shift at Guardian Insurance. My sisters, Leslie and Lynda, and I shared a bed, and every morning we were bundled up and sent off to Catholic school. That was why my parents worked all those long hours, so they could pay for a good education and raise us right. I can still remember those days of walking to school at seven a.m., freezing in my little unifo
rm skirt and kneesocks, the snow dusting the streets.
We used to dance and sing together, my sisters and I, putting on little shows in the living room. We did it because we loved it, because it was fun to act like we were on a stage somewhere. You could get so much material just walking down the street, seeing people and what they were wearing, and going into stores and listening to them talk. The Bronx was alive with sound and color and life, and I soaked it all up.
You could get so much material just walking down the street, seeing people and what they were wearing, and going into stores and listening to them talk. The Bronx was alive with sound and color and life, and we soaked it all up.
I grew up in the age of hip-hop, and I remember being in elementary school the first time I heard “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang. That song changed my world—I was like, “Play it again! Play it again! PLAY IT AGAIN!” I had never heard anything like it before, and it was so cool. It felt like the heartbeat of my upbringing, the soundtrack to my life. I always identified with that beat, the grit and the pulse of it.
Years later, I sang about those times in the song “Feelin’ So Good,” and the video took me right back to Castle Hill.
When I opened up my eyes today
Felt the sun shining on my face . . .
—“FEELIN’ SO GOOD”
It was Big Pun and Fat Joe and me, all of us back in the Bronx, singing about the pleasures of everyday life there . . . simple pleasures like walking into the beauty parlor, picking up your check, and buying yourself something new to wear so you could go out with your friends and have fun. I remember those times, the feeling that endless possibility existed in even the smallest things.
Those were moments I’d think back to later on, whenever the hard times knocked me flat. Whenever I’d go through a breakup, when I’d feel like I was losing myself, I’d find myself thinking, You need to get back to who you are. And then I’d wonder, Well, who am I? Was there something missing from back in the days when I was that girl pounding the streets of New York, doing auditions and hoping for the big break?
Because that girl never worried about what the future was going to hold. I was always in the present, always knowing somehow that things were going to work out. Life was visceral; there was that Bronx mentality of taking each day as it comes. I’d get up and go to dance class, then go to an audition, meet up with friends, and then choreograph something for a little show we were going to do. It was about pressing forward every day. I was relentless, reaching, always reaching, trying to get that brass ring. Nothing was going to stop me.
There was a certain hustle I grew up with, a hustle that I learned from watching my parents. They showed me that you put your head down and work—you work for a living and then, when you’re making a living, you still don’t stop. That continues to be my mentality now. We don’t stop working because we have money in the bank—we do what we do and we keep on doing it. That’s the way I was raised.
You put your head down and work—you work for a living and then, when you’re making a living, you still don’t stop.
And that’s what keeps me grounded. It’s real life, people surviving, people working hard to support their families. There might be some who see me as this person who’s been privileged forever. But my first record didn’t come out until I was twenty-eight years old. So for more than half of my life, I was out there struggling like everyone else for a chance to make it.
That’s what “Jenny from the Block” is all about. That’s what I wanted to show people in the Back to the Bronx section of the show, the duality between Big Hollywood and life on Castle Hill. Because yes, there’s a public image that I enjoy—I love dressing up. I love feeling glamorous. I love jewelry and beautiful things. But I’m still that little girl who’s playing the part of a movie star, that same girl from the Bronx wearing big hoop earrings and listening to hip-hop.
FIGHTING THROUGH THE PAIN
There’s a boxing ring set up at center stage. And I’m a boxer, walking out into the spotlight with my corner men, who hold the ropes for me as I step into the ring. I’m wearing loose-fitting pants, a bikini top, and a black cape with a hood over my head. I turn around so the crowd can see the word stenciled across my back: LOVE?
I shadowbox for a few seconds as the dancers, in boxing trunks, join me in the ring. And then I pull the hood off my head, an announcer booms, “The champ is here!” . . . and everybody goes nuts.
You think you know who I am? You think I’m just that sparkly, feathery, bejeweled woman you see on the screen? Well, think again. The music kicks up, and . . . I’m Goin’ In!
Tonight feels like we can do anything we like
Tonight feels like the best night of my life
I’m goin’ in . . .
—“GOIN’ IN”
I wanted to follow up the Big Hollywood opening with the Back to the Bronx section, to show people who I really was, that girl with the New York fight in me—and I knew exactly who could make that happen. I had seen some clips from a New Zealand choreographer named Parris Goebel, and her stuff was so tough—girls dancing like guys, leaving it all on the floor, and everything infused with this amazing energy. She was perfect.
Parris was never formally trained—she taught herself to dance and went from there to choreography, creating a style she called “polyswagg.” She and her crew were world-champion hip-hop dancers, but she had never been hired for a show the size of the Dance Again tour. No one out there was doing what she was doing, so we gave Parris her first shot, knowing that she’d create something completely different from anything else we had seen onstage. And she killed it.
Once again, the show became life imitating art, imitating life, because we went in with this whole boxing thing—you’re down but not out, and no matter what’s happening in your life, you keep fighting.
After performing in music videos and some of the biggest award shows in the world, performing night after night in front of tens of thousands of people on a world tour—despite what I imagined—proved to be one of the most natural things that I had ever done. That stage felt like home. All the nerves went away, and much like with running and dancing, I had clarity and I was in the moment. And this Bronx section in particular became my own personal daily affirmation of how, when you fall down, you have to get back up.
I would hold out the microphone and ask the audience every night: “Do you know where I’m from?”
And they’d scream back: “The Bronx!”
Then I’d say, “That’s right. I’m just a simple girl from the Bronx.”
They would laugh at the irony of me standing there wearing a tracksuit that was covered head-to-toe in sparkly Swarovski crystals. Anything but simple.
“Is that how you do it here in Sydney? When you fall down, you get back up?” I asked.
And the crowd would go crazy.
“That’s how we do it where I’m from. Can I ask you a question? Do you all want to go back to the Bronx with me?” I’d scream.
The crowd would erupt with a thunderous roar. Waaaahhhhhhhhhh. It was one of the most beautiful, empowering, and electrifying moments of the show.
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At this point, pretty much everyone in the world knew that I had recently gone through a divorce, and night after night they were helping me get back up again. Maybe I was helping them too.
The night I shouted this out to the fans in the Boston TD Garden arena, I put on my sparkly New York Yankees ball cap, like I did every night. And everybody started booing—of course! Die-hard Red Sox fans, what are you gonna do?
As they booed, I started laughing. And they all started cracking up too, and soon we were all laughing together. I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I got to wear it wherever I go, you know? I can’t not be from New York today.” I am who I am, no matter where life takes me.
No matter where I go
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I know where I came from . . .
—“JENNY FROM THE BLOCK”
The stage is set, guys carrying boom boxes and hanging out on their bikes, girls wearing hot shorts sitting on beach chairs in front of chain-link fences, video content filled with graffiti and the six train running through the city . . . That’s how we set the stage for this pulsating urban section of the show. No matter what city around the world we were visiting, at that moment everybody knew we were back in the Bronx.
Certain songs fell perfectly into this part of the show. “I’m Real,” “Ain’t It Funny,” “Feelin’ So Good,” “Jenny from the Block”—they had become so much a part of my image, how people saw me, because that’s how I saw myself. I always felt like I was this tough girl from the streets who knew what was what and wouldn’t take shit from anybody. The girl who had her head on straight and knew exactly what she wanted. Who would never let herself be treated like dirt, who would never lose herself in a relationship, who would never feel her whole world shaken by anyone . . .
True Love Deluxe Page 4