Jennifer Lopez's team advised her not to join “American Idol”: 'Nobody will ever hire you for a movie ever again'

Lopez said she took her career-boosting stint on "American Idol" against advice from those close to her.

Jennifer Lopez has revealed that her team nearly let an opportunity for her to join the American Idol judging panel fall on the floor.

The 55-year-old singer-actress recalled that she was faced with a tough decision ahead of her tenure on the singing competition series across its original run on Fox, on which she served as a judge from 2011 to 2016.

"I’ll do things that could be risky because I believe that they’re going to turn out okay. I’d done all these big movies and made these albums and now they’re asking me to do reality TV," Lopez told comedian Nikki Glaser in a new Interview magazine conversation, after the latter inquired about that period in her career. "I’ve had kids and I haven’t worked for a couple of years. American Idol was a big show at the time. It really comes down to, what do I think I can bring to something? When all of my advisors were like, 'Don’t do this, you’re going to be reduced to just a reality star.'"

Glaser pointed out that there's "a stigma" often attached to reality TV stars — a phenomenon that was far more prominent before Lopez boarded the panel of judges next to Randy Jackson and Steven Tyler, and later with Keith Urban and Harry Connick, Jr.

Lopez admitted she knew "it was looked down upon" for an entertainer of her stature at the time, and someone on her team told her, "Don’t do that or nobody will ever hire you for a movie ever again," though she ultimately made the decision for herself.

"And I was just like, 'No. I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. I think I have something to contribute,'" she remembered. "I love music and I love mentoring people, and I wanted to share the things that I knew about the business. So it became more about, 'What do I think I can do with this?' 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. It’s the same thing when I went to Vegas. They were like, 'That’s where entertainers go to die.' And I was like, 'No.' And it launched me into a whole new part of my life."

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Lopez's stint on American Idol coincided with a massive resurgence in her music career, as she dropped what would become one of the most successful singles in her discography, "On the Floor," in February 2011, and used the TV show's platform to debut the song's music video and her first live performance of the tune. It would eventually go on to become her first top-five hit as a lead solo act in the United States since 2002's "All I Have," which featured LL Cool J as a supporting artist.

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Not only did American Idol boost Lopez's career as a pop artist, it also didn't outwardly impact her success as an actress. Years later, the star would mount her most critically lauded performance to date in 2019's Hustlers, which went on to gross $105 million domestically ahead of landing Lopez nominations at the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Lopez, who also navigated a high-profile divorce from Ben Affleck earlier this year, can next be seen in the upcoming sports drama Unstoppable, for which she has also received critical praise following the film's world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival in September.

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