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Jennifer Lopez wasn’t always known as J.Lo. The Jenny from the Block singer shared the origin of her iconic nickname during Tuesday’s episode of World of Dance. The performer revealed to her fellow judges that rapper Heavy D was the one who gave her the moniker back when she was dating Sean “Diddy” Combs. “J.Lo came from Heavy D,” she admitted. “The rapper. He would come into the studio when I was making my first album, and he would always call me Jenny Lo. And I was dating Puffy at the time, and so, Puffy and Jennifer Lo, or Jenny Lo, was showing up in records. Like, they were talking about us in records and stuff like that.” She added, “So I was like, ‘I’m going to name the album J.Lo.’”
Jennifer’s second album titled J.Lo was released in 2001. At the time, the Hustlers star had a different explanation for the nickname. Discussing the name with the Chicago Tribune she said, “It’s something my music fans named me. I’d go to MTV or wherever and there would be kids carrying signs that said J.Lo. It’s kind of like street terminology, and it kind of caught on.”
In another interview with MTV (via Business Insider), the Maid in Manhattan actress set the record straight that she did not ask her record company to call her J.Lo. “It wasn’t something that I started, like, ‘Call me J.Lo.’ Fans gave me the nickname. It was actually pretty cool,” Jennifer said, while noting that her mother didn’t call her J.Lo, but was “so taken with the whole thing.”
Jennifer found herself with another nickname when she and now-fiancé Alex Rodriguez began dating in 2017. Fans quickly dubbed the power couple “J-Rod.” “I mean it’s fine, I don’t know,” she told Entertainment Tonight of the nickname. “We kind of thought that might happen because people who knew us were already doing it.” Meanwhile, the former MLB player told Extra , “I’m fine with everything — it’s close to A-Rod.”