Lizzo Says She Was Never Asked to Be in Jennifer Lopez’s Musical Movie

Tatiana Tenreyro
·2 min read
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One of the most revealing moments of Jennifer Lopez’s Prime Video documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told is the behind-the-scenes look at the casting process for her musical film, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story.

In the Heights’ Anthony Ramos turned down an offer to appear out of respect for his friend and Lopez’s ex-husband, Marc Anthony. Khloé Kardashian was allegedly supposed to make a cameo, but rejected the role. Taylor Swift was a no. Ariana Grande was busy filming Wicked. Jason Momoa was not available, nor was Jennifer Coolidge or Snoop Dogg. Lizzo was also said to be unavailable.

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After watching the documentary, Lizzo took to TikTok to deny that she rejected a role in the musical film. “Ain’t nobody told me nothing!” she said. “Nobody asked me! JLo, I love you.”

It’s possible someone could have passed on the offer on behalf of the “About Damn Time” singer. A fan pointed out in the comments why Lizzo was likely unavailable: “You were on tour!” Lizzo spent the spring and summer of 2023 on her Special Tour, which was around the time that Lopez was working on her project.

Lopez planned a three-part project for the release of her first album in over a decade, This Is Me … Now. She made This Is Me … Now: A Love Story as a visual vehicle for her record, giving fans a wider glimpse at her many complicated romances and reunion with now-husband Ben Affleck. The documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, was filmed to show the process of self-financing the musical movie, as well as giving a look at the multihyphenate’s dynamic with Affleck behind closed doors.

While speaking with THR about This Is Me … Now: A Love Story, Lopez explained why she decided to make a musical movie experience, rather than creating individual music videos for the album. “I didn’t think it was right to throw out a video and do the normal thing. I wanted to do something really different with this. I called [music video director] Dave Meyers, we sat down together and I played him some of the music. He says that I sang some of the music to him, too,” she said.

Lopez continued, “I told him that I made this album 20 years ago, and now we’re here, and he said, ‘That’s the story. The story you just told me is the story.’ I told him that I didn’t want to tell the story of Ben and I, because people know that story. I wanted to do something different. So we embarked upon how to do that in a visual way with singing, dancing and funny in a life-like way.”

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