Sleeping on a dance studio couch at 18

Jennifer Lopez grew up in the Bronx, in New York City. Her father worked nights, and her mother sold Tupperware and also worked at a school. Dance was what she wanted to do, and when she finished school she chose it over college. That decision led to a rift with her mother, Guadalupe, who did not support the choice.

At 18, Lopez left home to dance full time. In a 2013 interview reported by ABC News, when she was 43, she described what followed. With nowhere else to live, she began sleeping on the sofa in a dance studio. She said she was homeless at that time, and that she told her mother the move was what she had to do. The article does not name the studio, and it does not give an exact length for the period. Lopez herself indicated that things moved quickly, saying it all happened within a year.

Her break came when she was offered a job dancing in Europe. After returning she booked a place as a Fly Girl dancer on the television series In Living Color, which led to her moving to Los Angeles.

From there she built a career as a singer, actress and producer with an international audience. At the time of the interview she was the mother of twins, Max and Emme, who were five years old. She also spoke about her Bronx roots, and mentioned that her last visit to her childhood home was when her parents told the family they were separating after 33 years of marriage.