Why Is Jennifer Lopez Getting so Much Hate Right Now?
Less than five years after the internet rallied to defend Jennifer Lopez following her Hustlers Oscar snub, she is the subject of its collective scorn. 2024 has, without question, been a rocky year for Lopez: her low album and tour sales have put her Las Vegas residency at risk, her new film Atlas has been panned by critics and audiences alike, and her marriage to Ben Affleck is reportedly on the rocks. Through all this, Lopez has been the subject of viral jokes and takedowns. So, what happened?
Is Jennifer Lopez getting more online hate than usual?
In February, Lopez released her film This Is Me… Now: A Love Story, which fictionalized her romance with Affleck. Shortly after its release, Lopez dropped the documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told on Amazon Prime. It provided an inside look at the making of the album This Is Me … Now and the accompanying film. It also provided fodder to anyone looking to make fun of Lopez online.
In one widely circulated clip, Lopez sits on a workout bench and tousles her hair.
“I like taking my hair out like this,” she says. “It reminds me like, when I was 16 in the Bronx running up and down the block. Crazy little girl who used to f***ing be wild and no limits, all dreams and s***.”
Social media users pounced on the clip, poking fun at Lopez’s hair and frequent references to her childhood in the Bronx. Some even called her retellings of her Bronx upbringing into question, resurfacing the 2022 Vogue 73 Questions in which she said her bodega go-to order was “ham and cheese on a roll with an orange drink. If you know, you know.” TikTokers from the Bronx hopped on the platform to mock Lopez’s order, saying they had never heard of “orange drink.”
In the months since then, social media users have analyzed Lopez’s interactions with her Atlas co-stars, searching for indications that they’re irritated with her. A quote from a Page Six source who claimed Affleck wants a “divorce on grounds of temporary insanity” has also been widely and gleefully shared.
Why are people mad at J. Lo?
Lopez has received hate in the past, but the campaign against her appears to have reached a new level of vitriol this year. Celebrities — especially women — find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion all the time, through no fault of their own. In Lopez’s case, though, many people have drawn on anecdotal evidence to explain why they dislike her. Social media users have shared stories of Lopez allegedly making outlandish demands and being rude to fans.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a nice story about JLo, but I’ve heard tons of terrible ones,” one Reddit user wrote. “Even if only 25% are true, that’s still a lot of awful for one person.”
These stories have been circulating for years, though. It appears that the hate campaign against Lopez has come to a head this year because of her attempts to achieve relatability. People have bristled at Lopez’s continual references to her upbringing in the Bronx because they come across as plays for authenticity. While she did grow up in the borough, she has been a celebrity for decades and is currently worth millions of dollars. Rather than coming across as inspirational, the constant harkening back to her relatable childhood feels hollow and cringe-worthy to many of her critics.
Jennifer Lopez faced a great deal of hate after a 1998 interview
In 1998, Lopez gave an interview that stoked so much fury that people still reference it today. In a conversation with Movieline, Lopez described herself as “the best” and went on to disparage a number of her peers.
“Tell me what she’s been in?” she said of Gwyneth Paltrow. “I swear to God, I don’t remember anything she was in. Some people get hot by association. I heard more about her and Brad Pitt than I ever heard about her work.”
She added that Cameron Diaz was a “lucky model” who didn’t do enough with the acting opportunities she received and that Claire Danes did “a lot of the same thing with every character she does.”
Lopez said she cried after the article’s publication and felt Movieline took her comments out context.
