This Week in Gossip #4

JLo hypes a new album and “experience”, Rihanna’s business practices are shady, a Spears leaves the jungle, and AI continues to suck.

Content warning: This week’s edition discusses domestic abuse and violence against women.

1. She is Here… Now: Jennifer Lopez Announces New Album and Movie

About a year ago, Jennifer Lopez announced her next album, her first in around a decade. We knew it was going to be called This is Me… Now, a callback to her 2002 record This is Me… Then. We even got the track listing. Then… nothing. Things went very quiet as Lopez got on with the business of being astonishingly famous and making Dunkin Donuts runs with Ben Affleck. She’s never not busy. There’s always another gig to perform at, another movie to star in, another red carpet to steal. That hustle is what’s made her an enduring figure for well over 30 years in this industry. Now, we have a release date for the album and the announcement of a tie-in movie of the same name.

According to the lavish (even by PR standards) press email, This is Me… Now will be "like nothing you’ve ever seen from JL. A narrative-driven, intimate, reflective, sexy, funny, fantastical and highly entertaining musical and visual reimagining of her publicly scrutinized love life." This "musical experience" will feature "impressive choreography, star-studded cameos, costumes, sets and blockbuster-worthy visuals." Music director and regular Lopez collaborator Dave Meyers is behind the camera, and Affleck has a co-writing credit. The trailer is certainly the exact brand of slick maximalism that Lopez has made her bread and butter.

Music movies are certainly having a moment. Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour broke box office records and became the highest-grossing concert movie ever made, while Beyoncé is about to launch the big-screen version of the Renaissance tour. Lopez’s effort is definitely aiming more for Lemonade than Renaissance, although that comparison is also not really fair or accurate. Lopez’s appeal as a celebrity has always been in her savviness with marketing herself as a multi-hyphenate of intense flexibility. Bim Adewunmi best described it in a Buzzfeed piece from 2017: “Not being “the best” hasn’t harmed Lopez. Instead, her versatility when it comes to wearing many hats has been her saving grace. The Jennifer Lopez Way™ is to shine without apology, artfully weathering the waxing and waning of her audience’s interest, while keeping us transfixed.”

She’s not the vocal powerhouse that Beyoncé is or the songwriting talent that made Swift beloved. But she makes good music and dances and acts and presents and whatever else you throw her way. The downside of this is that, when she does shine, it’s often downplayed or dismissed, as happened when she knocked Hustlers out of the park and Hollywood sneered at her chances of an Oscar nomination (which she should have gotten, dammit!) She can do American Idol then an NBC drama then the Super Bowl Half-time Show and none of it feels like a step up or down for her career. She’s just on that high level all the time.

But now, she’s back to being part of a power couple, and this time around, people LOVE Bennifer. They didn’t always. Indeed, the early days of that romance over two decades ago were plagued by cruel comments and a hell of a lot of nastiness towards her more than Ben. They’re older, wiser, hotter, and on a higher plain of industry clout. Not only is Affleck co-writing his wife’s big music experience movie, he’s producing Unstoppable, a sports drama Lopez has a major role in (although production was shut down during the writer’s strike and a restart date hasn’t been announced.)

J.Lo is hard working, versatile, super in love with love, and highly extra, so this movie “experience” seems like standard stuff from her. I’ll be curious to see how it does commercially. Don’t underestimate Lopez.

2. Savage x Fenty Has Terrible Ethics Records, Reminding Us That All Billionaires Suck

Image via Flickr Copyright: (c) 2023 Peter Dutton dutton@alumni.princeton.edu (Creative Commons)

Rihanna has become known less as a singer this past decade than a business mogul who went from rich to obscenely wealthy thanks to her make-up brand Fenty. Aside from selling solid beauty products (her fat water serum-toner mix is great), she also has her lingerie company Savage x Fenty. Founded in 2018 as a joint venture with TechStyle Fashion Group, the first collection immediately sold out and grew into a brand that took over lingerie giants like Victoria's Secret. It has an annual show on Amazon Prime featuring celebrities like Paris Hilton, Cindy Crawford, and, uh, Johnny Depp. Much like her beauty brands, Rihanna turned Savage x Fenty into an Event product, with a focus on inclusivity in terms of sizing and design. And it worked. In 2021, the brand was valued at $1 billion, and last year, they opened their first brick-and-mortar stores across the U.S.