Inside Jennifer Lopez’s Whirlwind Year From Her Perfect Proposal to Super Bowl Stardom

Performing at the Feb. 10 Grammys, Lopez crushed a medley of Motown hits (plus dance moves and multiple costume changes) to recognize the record label’s 60th anniversary. 

After Rodriguez reached out to Joanna Gaines about having her and husband Chip Gaines tackle their fixer upper—a three-floor, four-bedroom, 4,404-square-foot spread in the decidedly upscale neighborhood of Malibu, Calif.—the foursome got together for an April double date. So, when’s that episode airing? 

The retired baseball pro topped his anniversary gift of Joanna Gaines with an estimated $1 million stunning emerald cut diamond and a well-rehearsed March proposal on a Bahamian beach. The plan is for the two to bring their blended family (she has 11-year-old twins Max and Emme; he’s Dad to daughters Natasha, 15, and Ella, 11) together this year. “I’d like a big wedding and I’d like to get married in a church this time,” she shared on YouTube of the 2020 affair. “I’ve never been married in a church and I’ve been married three times.” 

“I was terrified. I felt exposed. I was like, ‘I’ve never done anything like this. I’m going to be up there in f–king dental floss,'” Lopez told Variety of filming her stripping scenes for Hustlers. “And then you get up there, and you have to have a ‘f–k you,’ empowered attitude. You have to take your power back.” Uh, raise your hand if you’d feel awfully bold if your abs looked like this. 

The cure for whatever ails us: “Medicine”, the single she released with French Montana in April, hit number one on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. The musician went on to perform it during a May Today concert and use it as the opener for her 38-date It’s My Party tour.  

Not even a New York City blackout could stop Lopez from delivering at her Madison Square Garden performances. After a successful July 12 show (during which she gave a lap dance to recent World Cup victor Carli Lloyd) a Manhattan power outage forced her to cancel the next night’s concert. But when she returned to the stage July 15, she delivered. Leave it to J.Lo to bring us out of the dark. 

Yup, we’d say the head-to-toe blinged-out Versace and accompanying 129.48-carat Harry Winston necklace constituted a fourth-degree slayage. 

One doesn’t simply show up to the CFDA Fashion Awards in just anything—particularly when they’re being recognized as a Fashion Icon for their “bold, uninhibited, and always memorable” style, as CFDA president and CEO Steven Kolb put it. So the designer turned out in a custom Ralph Lauren bedazzled crop and dramatic train moment. 

What to get the woman who truly has everything for her birthday: For Rodriguez it was a $140,000 red Porsche 911 GTS convertible. Well done, sir. 

Her love? That don’t cost a thing. But you’re gonna need to shell out to recognize a milestone birthday. Lopez’s gilded July bash at Gloria Estefan‘s estate on Miami Beach’s Star Island featured a multi-tiered cake, a champagne tower, several tents of partygoers and a fireworks finale. 

When you’re Jennifer Lopez, you can do things like phone up Supreme Court Justice (and fellow New Yorker) Ruth Bader Ginsburg and arrange a meeting to ask, amongst other things, we’d assume, the secret to a long, happy marriage. Recalling the encounter during her September talk at the Library of Congress National Book Festival, the Brooklyn-bred attorney shared that she passed along the words she’d received from her mother-in-law more than five decades earlier: “It helps sometimes to be a little deaf.”

Oh, this old thing? Just something she had lying around from her appearance at the 2000 Grammys. “It was such an empowering thing,” the actress recently told Vanity Fair of putting on a revamped version of the infamous jungle dress to close out Donatella Versace‘s Milan Fashion Week show in September. “Twenty years had gone by, and I think for women, knowing you can put on a dress 20 years later—it resonated. It was like, ‘Yes, you know, life is not over at 20!'”

Living up to her film’s name (she took on double-duty acting and producing), she hit the press circuit hard, turning out in cities from Toronto to New York City to Los Angeles in Elie Saab, Balmain and Zimmerman. Her reward: stellar box office numbers (Hustlers raked in an estimated $32.2 domestically during opening weekend) and her first Golden Globe since her 1997 breakout role as Mexican-American singer Selena Quintanilla. 

Just in case you forgot, she posted a sweaty October gym selfie highlighting her collection with Niyama Sol and the results of her Sunday workout session. 

When she and Rodriguez spied a post from a Tennessee educator detailing how one of her students was too hungry too learn, the investors in frozen food company Tiller & Hatch arranged “to donate a year’s worth of of their yummy, healthy meals, for the students and their school’s food pantry,” she explained in an Instagram post. “This is why being a business owner, and having actual ownership in companies (not licensing), is so important to me and Alex, especially as Latinos.”  

Announced as the new face of Coach in November, Lopez’s spring campaign just dropped last week. Hope your wallet is prepared!

Bigger boss move: opening Saturday Night Live with a monologue of all the ways you’ve been killing it or dancing toe-to-toe with the Rockettes? Lopez did both, then slipped into her standout Versace for good measure. And that was just the first few minutes. 

Sure, she lost the Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture prize to Marriage Story‘s Laura Dern, but Rodriguez ensured she still felt like a winner with his post-show Instagram tribute. “Jen, it doesn’t take a trophy, medal, or plaque to identify a true champion,” he wrote. “To millions of young women who have watched you and have been inspired and empowered to do amazing things in their lives, you are a champion. For countless musicians, dancers, actresses, and performers who have seen and emulate your passion, drive and work ethic to find their own success, you are a champion.”

Lopez fans got loud when they learned the Hustlers standout didn’t score an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of stripper and shrewd entrepreneur Ramona. 

No doubt her months of hard work will pay off tomorrow evening at the Super Bowl. The game plan for the 12-minute performance includes individual sets from both her and Shakira in English and Spanish plus a chance for us to see Lopez dance again. “It’s in Miami and we’re both Latin artists,” she explained on CBS Sunday Morning in December. “We bring that flavor.”

Consider us game ready.