As a teenager, Lopez was confident that life in the spotlight was for her.

She started performing in stage musicals, and at 16, Lopez made her film debut. She had a small role in the 1986 film My Little Girl – and four years later, her television breakthrough came after she starred as a Fly Girl for 63 episodes in In Living Color.

Homeless at 18

Lopez had taken the advice of her parents and never gave up on her dream. That said, before her European breakthrough and television shows, she and her mother, Guadalupe, had a big fight over her career choices.

At one point, Lopez was forced to sleep on a sofa of her dance studio as her parents disapproved of her choosing a career in show business. In defiance, she decided to leave the house.

“My mom and I butted heads,’” Lopez told W Magazine in 2013. “I didn’t want to go to college — I wanted to try dance full-time. So she and I had a break.”

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