J.Lo Recalls Being Recognized for the First Time Following the Release of “Selena”

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It’s difficult to imagine Jennifer Lopez going to a Target without getting recognized, but there was a time when the Bronx native was not famous. She recently recalled the first instance when a stranger recognized her in public—and how it totally freaked her out.

Apparently, the moment occurred following the release of her movie Selena, where she played the Queen of Tejano Music Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. “I remember walking down the street that first time and somebody calling my name and [me] thinking it was somebody who knew me,” Lopez reflected in a new interview with Variety. “And I turned around and I didn’t know them.”

J.Lo reenacted the moment before adding, “I got so freaked out. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not anonymous anymore. I can’t just walk down the street. Like, if somebody calls me, it’s not somebody I know, it’s somebody I don’t know.’”

For Jenny from the Block, that role in Selena really transformed her life. “That was when I kind of became famous,” she noted. “I had been doing television and actually had done a few movies already, but with Selena, there was a new level of fame.”

Prior to Lopez’s portrayal of Quintanilla-Pérez in the ’97 biopic, she had been a Fly Girl on In Living Color and had starred in films Money Train (1995) and Jack (1996). But Selena was her total breakthrough, even landing her a Best Actress nomination at the 55th Golden Globes the following year.

Now of course, Lopez has numerous films under her belt, including her latest project, This Is Me...Now: A Love Story, a musical film that is tied to her ninth studio album, which arrives on February 16.

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