TV & Movies
Jennifer Lopez Was Advised Not To Join American Idol
The singer recently looked back on the “risky” career move.
When veteran judge Simon Cowell left American Idol in 2010, Jennifer Lopez was promptly announced as one of his replacements. However, the singer’s advisors “looked down” on her decision to join the show.
In a conversation with Nikki Glaser for Interview magazine, Lopez discussed joining American Idol Season 10 as a judge alongside Randy Jackson and Steven Tyler. She admitted that pivoting from music and acting to reality TV was “risky,” but said she’d been confident that everything would “turn out OK.”
“I’d done all these big movies and made these albums and now they’re asking me to do reality TV. I’ve had kids and I haven’t worked for a couple of years,” she recalled, adding that, despite American Idol being a “big show at the time,” her team was against her joining the judging panel.
“My advisors were like, ‘Don’t do this, you’re going to be reduced to just a reality star. ... Nobody will ever hire you for a movie ever again.’” Lopez continued, “I was just like, ‘No. I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. I think I have something to contribute.’”
“I love music and I love mentoring people,” she told Glaser. “I wanted to share the things that I knew about the business.”
After ultimately joining American Idol in 2011, Lopez remained on the judging panel for two consecutive seasons. In 2014, she returned to the show following a one-season absence, and left in 2016 after its final season on Fox.
Her departure marked the end of what Billboard called “the most impressive reality-TV-based rejuvenation of a music career ever,” referring to Lopez’s chart success during her Idol tenure — namely, 2011’s “On the Floor,” which reached the top three of the Billboard Hot 100.
JLo Trusts Her Gut
Given that the American Idol risk paid off, Lopez told Glaser that she continues to follow her career instincts. “When I’m choosing things, even if they seem like not the best idea to everybody else, if I feel it in my gut that it’s the right thing to do, nobody can talk me out of it,” she said.
Lopez also revealed that advisors tried to talk her out of fronting her Las Vegas residency, which ran from 2016 to 2018 and grossed $101.9 million after 120 shows.
“They were like, ‘That’s where entertainers go to die,’” she said. “And I was like, ‘No.’ And it launched me into a whole new part of my life.”
