Early life

Lopez was born and raised in the Bronx, New York to Puerto Rican parents Guadalupe Rodríguez, a kindergarten teacher, and David Lopez, a computer specialist.[4] She has two siblings, Lynda and Leslie. Lopez spent her entire academic career in Catholic schools. She financed singing and dancing lessons for herself from the age of nineteen. After leaving a one-semester career at Baruch College, Lopez divided her time between working in a legal office, dance classes, and dance performances in Manhattan clubs at night. After months of auditioning for dance roles, Lopez was selected as a dancer for various rap artists' music videos, a 1990 episode of Yo! MTV Raps, and on the American Music Awards as a backup dancer for the New Kids on the Block and their performance of their song "Games" in 1991. After being rejected twice, Lopez gained her first regular high-profile job as a "Fly Girl" dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color in 1990. Soon after, Lopez became a backup dancer for Janet Jackson and made an appearance in her 1993 video "That's the Way Love Goes".