“I chose the fun B-movie because…”: The Way Jennifer Lopez Humiliated Matthew Perry’s $42M Movie With Salma Hayek Will Infuriate FRIENDS Fans

SUMMARY

• Jennifer Lopez, the singer-songwriter has been busy carving a path in the entertainment world, while coming up against a worthy rival in the early 2000s.
• Salma Hayek's rise in Hollywood in the late 90s and early 00s gave Jennifer Lopez a run for her money as both actresses began to come up for similar roles.
• Jennifer Lopez's cruel comments about Salma Hayek's film with Matthew Perry backfired when Hayek landed an Oscar nomination a few years later.

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The multi-talented, multi-award-winning Jennifer Lopez has been busy crafting a career path in the entertainment industry since the 1990s. The singer has been as prominent a voice in the early 2000s as her moves have been on the dance floor. But most of all, she was one half of the Bennifer saga that captured the world’s attention and went on to repeat itself 20 years later, only to meet a fated, tragic end.

Jennifer Lopez in Selena (1997) [Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures]

With Selena (1997), the singer and dancer proved her mettle as an actor and soon transitioned into Hollywood as a leading lady. After spending a life in the public light embroiled in gossip and controversy, Lopez has hardly ever existed outside of pop culture. However, the only aspect of her life that could have overshadowed the Bennifer saga was Lopez’s online feud with Salma Hayek.

Jennifer Lopez & Salma Hayek Go Up Against Each Other

2003 marked the beginning of many ends, one of which included the growth, peak, and fall of Jennifer Lopez‘s formative career relationship with fellow actress, Salma Hayek. Despite both actresses coming up in the industry at a similar time while catering to the same fanbase, there was never an inkling of a potential camaraderie between the pair, let alone a professional friendship.

Salma Hayek in Frida (2002) [Credit: Miramax]

With her celebrity status at its peak in the early Aughts, Lopez enjoyed a privilege only awarded to a few. The Grammy-nominated star’s rise in Hollywood further contributed to her fame and celebrity status in her career as a singer. Meanwhile, her rising contemporary actress, Salma Hayek began to pose as a worthy rival to her hard-earned status in the industry.

Salma Hayek’s role in Frida, which was first offered to Lopez who promptly turned it down, helped elevate her further in the early 2000s. Due to their Latina identities, both Hayek and Lopez’s names began to come up for similar roles, with one actress taking over if the other refused. However, rivalry got the better of Lopez after an unsavory remark led things down the wrong path.

Jennifer Lopez Goes Down the Wrong Path

Jennifer Lopez made a bad call when she turned down Frida, an arthouse-adjacent film that could have made her an A-list actress instead of a B-grade star, with mostly forgettable films like Maid in Manhattan and Anaconda to her name. Hayek, on the other hand, was as much in awe of the artist as she was honored to be chosen as the lead in Frida. The role evrn won Salma Hayek an Academy Award nomination.

Jennifer Lopez in Anaconda [Credit: Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures]

But long before Frida landed the final nail in the coffin, Lopez herself contributed to the disruption between the pair by degrading Hayek as an actress in a slyly worded jab hidden underneath a superficial compliment. In 1998, Lopez claimed in an interview with Movieline:

We’re in two different realms. She’s a sexy bombshell and those are the kinds of roles she does. I do all kinds of different things.

It makes me laugh when she says she got offered Selena, which was an outright lie. If that’s what she does to get herself publicity, then that’s her thing. Columbia offered me the choice of Fools Rush In or Anaconda, but I chose the fun B-movie because the Fools script wasn’t strong enough.

Later, Jennifer Lopez claimed that her comments were blown out of proportion, but the crux of the matter still stands. Despite denigrating the Matthew Perry-Salma Hayek featuring Fools Rush In, her “fun B-movie” failed to perform any better than the former. Meanwhile, her comments backfired when Salma Hayek landed an Oscar nomination a mere 5 years after being criticized by Lopez.

Frida is streaming on MGM+ and Fools Rush In is available to buy/rent on Apple TV.

Written by Diya Majumdar

Articles Published: 1772

With a degree in Literature from Miranda House, Diya Majumdar now has over 1700 published articles on FandomWire. Her passion and profession both include dissecting the world of cinema while being a liberally opinionated person with an overbearing love for music, Monet, and Van Gogh.