Jennifer Lopez Compares Her Famous Green Versace Dress to This Iconic Hollywood Moment

Jennifer Lopez will always have her iconic Versace green dress moment. The Feb. 23, 2000, date is etched into fans’ memories because it’s the day the superstar truly announced that she had arrived. Lopez wasn’t going to wait for someone to tell her she was an A-list celebrity, she was telling everyone that the time was now.

What makes that red carpet appearance so memorable — beyond the plunging V-neckline and thigh-high slit — is that Lopez was committing a fashion faux pas. Donatella Versace, supermodel Amber Valetta, and Spice Girl Geri Halliwell had already been seen in the ensemble, but Lopez insisted on wearing it despite the fact that her then-stylist Andrea Lieberman was “begging” her not to wear it. “Well, you bought it, and it looks the best, so I’m going to wear it,” recalled Lopez to Vogue. “And so I did. And it caused, you know, quite a stir.”

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Lopez knows how to make an entrance just like Marilyn Monroe did in the movie, The Seven Year Itch. The 54-year-old actress believes that “every generation needs its iconic kind of Marilyn dress, and this is that dress for this generation.” The 1955 film featured Monroe in a white halter dress with a billowy, pleated skirt, but it’s the movie’s best-known scene that cemented her ensemble into fashion history. She stood over a New York City subway grate on the sidewalk, and as the train passed by Monroe’s dress flowed all around her, exposing her gorgeous legs. At that moment, her character famously said, “Ooh, do you feel the breeze from the subway?”

Lopez likened the moment of stepping on the 2000 Grammys stage to Marilyn’s signature outfit. “Why it became that? It was just a moment when the wind blew open, and I walked out onto the stage, and it just kinda happened,” the “Jenny From the Block” singer suggested. It’s a night she will never forget. In 2017, Lopez told Entertainment Tonight that the Versace dress was a game-changer for her career. “It was a weird feeling,” Lopez explained. “I was like, ‘What’s happening?’ And my dress was happening, and I didn’t know it.”

And if you’re a fan of Google’s Image Search… well, you have Lopez to thank for that, too. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt shared in 2015 that the green dress was the reason why the feature exists today. “After all, people wanted more than just text. This first became apparent after the 2000 Grammy Awards, where Jennifer Lopez wore a green dress that, well, caught the world’s attention,” Schmidt wrote in Project Syndicate. “At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: J­Lo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born.”

And that’s how a star was born!

Before you go, click here to see photos of Marilyn Monroe’s too-short life.

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