How Jennifer Lopez has fallen from grace due to ‘bonkers’ documentary, lack of tour sales and album debuting at 38 in the Billboard Top 200

She has been dubbed the ‘Queen of Dance’ and is considered one of the most influential Latin entertainer of all time with six albums going Platinum.

But Jennifer Lopez‘s carer seemed to have plateaued of late.

He recent tour, her first in five years, has been met with low ticket sales, while her new album is lacking her typical fanfare,  debuting at number 38 on the Billboard 200, despite getting the most physical sales of the week at 14,000 copies.

This is a far cry from her early noughties peak, when the singer sold more than 80 million records and had global headline tours.

Even four years ago, the star was applauded for one of the greatest Superbowl halftime shows in history, where she performed a medley of her greatest hits with Shakira as millions of people watched around the world.

So, where exactly did Jenny from the Block go wrong?

Weeks after Jennifer Lopez suddenly cancelled several dates from her tour for seemingly no reason, it seems the entire tour itself is being rebranded.

The couple’s love story started in 2002 (pictured) when they dated while filming the movie Jersey Girl. They became engaged the following year but broke up in 2004

There’s certainly no shortage of promotion. Jennifer Lopez’s campaign for her latest album, “This is Me… Now,” is entirely self-financed, at a staggering cost of $20 million.

Inspired heavily by her revived romance with husband Ben Affleck, the album is accompanied by a visual film titled “This is Me Now… A Love Story,” which critics have described as “bonkers” and “an over-the-top delight for fans.”

Alongside the album and film release, an Amazon Prime documentary titled “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” detailing her relationship with the Batman star, was also launched. Interestingly, the title contrasts with the couple’s decision to call off their initial wedding due to “excessive media attention.”

But why are some fans now turning on the once-beloved star?

Jennifer’s portrayal in the documentary has led some fans to label her as “out of touch” and “delusional.” In one particular moment that circulated widely, J Lo is seen playing with her hair in the mirror while reminiscing about her upbringing in the Bronx, a famously working-class neighborhood of New York.

“I like taking my hair out like this,” she says.

The 54-year-old singer announced the tour in February – her first nationwide tour in five years – to support her new album This Is Me… Now

Now it’s been revealed that the tour will be re-titled from This Is Me… Now: The Tour to This Is Me… Live, focusing more on her greatest hits, via Variety

The clip gained backlash on TikTok, with one user, Angela, who claims to have attended the same school as the hitmaker, accusing her of “lying to look more human.”

“We both attended an all-girls high school in an Irish and Italian neighborhood, so you weren’t ‘running up and down the block,'” she said.

Critics have also met the documentary and album with a lukewarm response.

“For all her promises to show us the real her, it’s a struggle to see it in the slick and sexy production,” The Independent said. The Guardian added that it “offers very little outside of simply soundtracking a cozy night in chez Bennifer,” describing it as “hopelessly middle of the road.”

So, why have the tides turned? According to one brand expert, the star isn’t keeping up with the times.

“The backlash against J Lo has for sure been bubbling for a while,” Emily M Austen, who runs the PR agency EMERGE, told Femail. “In the last decade, despite her love life being well-broadcasted, there was still an air of mystery around her, as a mega superstar.”

Jennifer Lopez emotionally recalled breaking off her marriage to Ben Affleck in 2004 when they first dated

The singer, 54, opened up about her relationship with her husband Ben, 51, in her new documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told

‘The control of what was fed out to fans via social media and press coverage meant it was much easier to control her image.

‘The first big moment for the backlash came as the Superbowl documentary, Halftime, aired in 2022.

‘Her behaviour seemed uncompromising and whingy, having to share a stage with Shakira.

‘Her grievance about it wasn’t expressed eloquently and made her seem unlikable.

‘In the shadow of beloved and long suffering Jennifer Garner,  [Ben Affleck’s ex-wife] much of the imagery we have seen from J Lo has been mundane – car rides with Ben, curb side arguments, fast food takeaways.

‘Often looking miserable. This has shattered the fourth wall, one which we’d all bought into. We didn’t want her to be a normal person.

Critics have blasted Jennifer Lopez’s new film This In Me… Now: A Love Story as a ‘self-financed and resolutely, painfully autobiographical’ vanity project

Jennifer Lopez once revealed how Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (pictured together in 2000) was the first man to cheat on her during their ‘tumultuous’ relationship from 1999 until 2001

The rebrand is expected to draw in fans from her previous work, which may lure in listeners who didn’t connect with This Is Me… Now

‘The big challenge with a star like J Lo is staying power. As her fans have grown older with her, she’s not done a good enough job of engaging with new fans and bringing them on the journey with her.

J Lo’s tour rebrand would ‘get everyone talking about it’

Brand expert Hayley Knight added:  ‘There is one main reason why Jennifer Lopez has rebranded her tour, and that’s to get people talking about it.

‘Sales are low, and there hasn’t been a great deal of engagement or buzz around it, so rebranding it has gotten everyone talking about it again.

However, rebranding it to the new name of ‘This is Me – Live, the Greatest Hits’, has the potential to bring the same issues. Firstly, it diminishes the confidence she has in her same titled new album, and focuses on her hits. Secondly, unlike the likes of Taylor Swift, Madonna, Britney Spears and Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez doesn’t have a devoted fan base. She has more casual fans of her music, who may or may not choose to go and see her live, or listen to her new album, so there really isn’t a buzz about it. Also, it isn’t a world tour – just North America, and this can be incredibly detrimental on ticket sales when the fan base isn’t necessarily large. For example, she’s isolating her Spanish and Latin American fans.

Jennifer also doesn’t really sit in the generation of ‘stans’ (devoted fans), and appeals more to the older generation, who aren’t consuming content on social media (TikTok), so her marketing channels are limited – and outdated. And her Amazon Prime film series, seemed to be more of a vanity project, than for her fans – unlike Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour documentary and Beyonce’s Renaissance movie. And over the past few years, her focus has shifted to movies, which she is becoming more known for with the newer generations.

Overall, her focus needs to remain on the music and appealing to a new, more engaged audience. She has been criticised for being out of touch, and it has long since been known that she is a diva, and this doesn’t go down well with audiences nowadays. People are looking for strong role models, and who are relatable, and she doesn’t come across as this. And there are actually videos on TikTok of women speaking how unrelatable she is. I think, rather than continue using her ‘Jenny from the Block’ persona, which comes across as outdated and ill-advised, she needs to be more honest with her audiences, and show them the real her, and her real life. Artists who have devoted fan bases do this very well, whether they share their life through the music, or directly with their audience.

The rebrand to boost ticket sales and appeal won’t work unless she has a strong marketing strategy, which focuses on reaching out to, and engages with existing fans, as well focus on new platforms and targeting new audiences

The backlash against Jennifer Lopez has intensified, particularly on platforms like TikTok, following the release of her new documentary, which many view as self-indulgent and out of touch.

The documentary has provided fodder for criticism, with clips of J Lo reminiscing about her memories of the Bronx, some 40 years ago, contrasting sharply with her current opulent lifestyle in a $60 million mansion. Critics argue that she’s disconnected from the reality of “running around the streets” given her lavish surroundings.

The documentary, funded at a staggering $20 million, has been perceived as unnecessary and indulgent, akin to an elaborate LA version of therapy homework. Moreover, Jennifer’s abrupt cancellation of several tour dates, and the subsequent rebranding of the tour from “This Is Me… Now: The Tour” to “This Is Me… Live,” further fueled skepticism among fans.

The rebranding is seen as an attempt to draw in fans with her greatest hits, possibly to compensate for the lukewarm reception of her latest album. However, doubts linger about whether this strategy will be effective. Critics, like Emily, attribute Jennifer’s struggle to connect with fans to a lack of authenticity and a focus on self-indulgent endeavors rather than her substantial achievements in music, film, and other ventures.

From promoting an alcohol brand despite claiming not to drink, to aspirations for an Oscar nomination for “Hustlers,” which some viewed as detached from reality, Jennifer’s actions have invited scrutiny and ridicule on social media. Overall, the consensus is that she’s facing a credibility crisis, and fans are increasingly questioning her authenticity and relevance.

‘Cutting content up, using the Duet feature and watching people reacting to her commentary has only perpetuated this further. J Lo needs to reconnect with her community, listen to what they want, and focus in on giving them that.’  The documentary also looks at her twenty-year journey to ‘self-love’.

Jennifer and Ben were famously engaged in the early 2000s before breaking up, only to reunite – and later marry – in July 2022.

Their initial two-year romance was highly publicised and the intense scrutiny on their relationship was difficult for the couple to handle.

The movie and album dropped on February 16, while the documentary will be released on February 27

Jennifer said: ‘Ben and I broke up three days before our wedding and we crumbled under the pressure. You think you’re doing ok so you shrug it off.

The On The Floor hitmaker also got candid about the pain she felt when the relationship came to an end.

She said: ‘I had a broken heart once I lost the love of my life, my best friend, and I couldn’t talk for so many years and that was the hardest part.

‘I used to think it was everyone else who was broken, now I think it was just me.’

The couple’s love story started in 2002 when they dated while filming the movie Jersey Girl.

They became engaged the following year but broke up in 2004.

While navigating their reconciliation, two decades following their first engagement, the two-time Oscar winner Ben admitted he had zero interest in becoming a fixture on his wife’s social media accounts.

‘Getting back together, I said, ‘Listen, one of the things I don’t want is a relationship on social media,’ the actor recalled.

‘Then I sort of realised it’s not a fair thing to ask. It’s sort of like, you’re gonna marry a boat captain and you go, “Well, I don’t like the water.”‘

He continued: ‘We’re just two people with different kinds of approaches trying to learn to compromise.’

Ultimately, Jennifer respected his wishes, and has only posted a small handful of snaps featuring him, including a raunchy shirtless photo last Father’s Day and a sweet video of them singing Sam Cooke’s (What A) Wonderful World in the car on his birthday.

She shared that ‘we both have PTSD’ from their initial dating experience, but explained that in their present life as a married couple they’re ‘older’ and ‘wiser’ (pictured in 2003)

During the documentary, the mother-of-two acknowledged Ben’s discomfort with stepping in the spotlight as a couple after facing intense media scrutiny when they first dated between 2002 and 2004.

‘I don’t think [Ben] is very comfortable with me doing all of this,’ she said. ‘But he loves me, he knows I’m an artist, and he’s gonna support me in every way he can because he knows you can’t stop me from making the music I made… he doesn’t want to stop me. But that doesn’t mean he’s comfortable being the muse.’

Elsewhere in the documentary, Jennifer burst into tears as she confessed what her husband made her see in herself was ‘moving’.

Welling up, she revealed: ‘What he said and what he saw in me, and what he made me believe about myself, only comes from love.

‘Because nobody else could have made me see that about myself. It’s very moving.

‘Because I didn’t think much about myself and so the world didn’t think much of me. That lined up.’

She said of their reunion: ‘We’re totally different people now and we’re the same and we have the same love 100 percent. Like I’d never fallen out of love with you. I had to just put it over here.’

The couple got engaged near the end of 2002 but broke the engagement in late 2003 before ending their relationship entirely in 2004.

In the intervening years, Jennifer married and divorced her third ex-husband Marc Anthony, with whom she welcomed her 15-year-old twins Max and Emme.

Meanwhile, Ben married and divorced Jennifer Garner, with whom he amicably co-parents three children.

Jennifer Lopez broke down in tears as she discussed what her husband Ben Affleck ‘saw’ in her in her new documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told

The hitmaker became emotional in the documentary as she spoke about her husband and how he has helped improve her self-confidence

The Prime Video doc is the third installment of her $20M media homage to her husband Ben Affleck , which includes the semi-autobiographical film, This Is Me… Now: A Love Story, about her highly scrutinised love life

Elsewhere in the documentary, Lopez burst into tears as she confessed what her husband made her see in herself was ‘moving’.

Welling up, she revealed: ‘What he said and what he saw in me, and what he made me believe about myself, only comes from love.

‘Because nobody else could have made me see that about myself. It’s very moving. Because I didn’t think much about myself and so the world didn’t think much of me. That lined up.’

She said of their reunion: ‘We’re totally different people now and we’re the same and we have the same love 100 percent. Like I’d never fallen out of love with you. I had to just put it over here.’

Affleck also addressed his alcohol issues in the documentary, comparing his struggle with his wife’s ‘need for love’.

He shared: ‘The thing you discover, like you do with alcohol, is that there isn’t enough alcohol in all the liquor stores in the world to fill up that thing.

‘In Jennifer’s case I don’t think there’s enough followers or records or any of that stuff to still that part of you that still feels a longing and a pain.’

When it came to casting her movie, Lopez struggled with enlisting celebrity cameos, as she shared which A-listers were given the opportunity.

Elsewhere in the documentary, Lopez burst into tears as she confessed what her husband made her see in herself was ‘moving’

In December, Lopez admitted she and Affleck ‘both have PTSD’ from the glare of the spotlight on their first romance

Jennifer Lopez’s Prime movie boasted an impressive lineup of celebrities, although some notable names, such as Snoop Dogg, Khloe Kardashian, Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Vanessa Hudgens, Lizzo, and Ariana Grande, either declined or were unavailable for the project. Lopez also aimed to cast Jason Momoa and Jennifer Coolidge in the film.

Despite these challenges, the movie featured several prominent figures, including Jane Fonda, Trevor Noah, Kim Petras, Post Malone, Keke Palmer, Sofia Vergara, Jenifer Lewis, Jay Shetty, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Sadhguru.

In the film, Lopez’s husband played the role of Rex Stone/Biker, while her longtime friend Fat Joe portrayed her therapist. Reflecting on her relationship with Ben Affleck, Lopez acknowledged that both of them experienced “PTSD” from the intense scrutiny during their initial romance. However, she emphasized that they’ve matured and prioritize authenticity and personal values in their current life together.

Their relationship, famously dubbed “Bennifer,” attracted widespread attention, especially after the release of Lopez’s album “This Is Me… Then,” which featured songs dedicated to Affleck. Their public appearances and the commercial failure of the film “Gigli” intensified media scrutiny and parody, including a memorable spoof on “South Park.”

Trey Parker, one of the show’s creators, claimed that the parody became so pervasive that it affected Lopez’s film sets, leading to the dismissal of some staff members. Despite the challenges, Lopez and Affleck’s relationship endured, evolving into a deeper understanding of themselves and their priorities.