Jennifer Lopez Shattered Records with $1.75 Million Earned in 40 Minutes

Summary

• In spite of a staggering net worth, Jennifer Lopez has a side hustle.
• The singer once earned $1.75 million for an hour-long private performance.
• Lopez has frequently performed at private events with huge price tags.
• These performances have come with some controversy.

Is there any point at which celebrities feel like they can just… relax? According to Celebrity Net Worth, Jennifer Lopez has around $400 million in the bank. Other sources claim she makes about $40 million per year. That's from her singing career, her acting career, various brand sponsorships, and serving as a judge on a variety of talent shows.

Obviously that's not enough money, so J-Lo has a side hustle. You know – like your UberEats job, except it pays a little better.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

So it turns out that when you're insanely wealthy – like, oil magnate money – you can afford to pay celebrities to come to your birthday party. And that's exactly how Jennifer Lopez managed to shatter hourly wage records. In exchange for an hour (or less!) of performance, she can charge upwards of a million dollars.

Lopez reportedly made $1.75 million by performing for approximately 40 minutes at a private event in Macau back in 2014. It was a birthday party hosted by a 'casino magnate' family that also flew in her team of backup dancers and paid for 20 hotel rooms. J-Lo's fee, for those keeping track at home, works out to $43,750 per minute.

That's her highest-priced performance yet, but it's far from her only private gig that came with a staggering paycheque. Russian billionaire Andrei Melnichenko paid the singer $1.2 million to perform at a private party in London back in 2012. On top of the fee, Melnichenko also forked out $800,000 to fly the singer and her entourage in a private jet from the US to his estate in Surrey.

So that's a $2 million dollar price tag on what turned out to be a 40 minute performance by J-Lo. To be fair to Melnichenko, it was a joint birthday party for himself and his wife at the time, Aleksandra Nikolic Melnichenko. So they shared a birthday present, which is actually very thrifty and economical. Right?

Private Performance Controversy

The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) reportedly paid Lopez somewhere between $1 million and $1.5 million to perform just three songs at a private event in 2013. The performance may have been short, but it still apparently had high production values: the singer's team included six back-up dancers and multiple costume changes.

The CNPC wasn't entirely smooth, however. Near the end of the performance, J-Lo was asked to sing 'Happy Birthday' to the guest of honor, Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. She did so, but after news of the serenade became public the singer was sharply criticized by human rights activists.

Berdimuhamedow runs Turkmenistan with an iron fist, and has been accused of widespread human rights abuses. In the country, access to social media and human rights websites are banned. Somewhat hilariously, J-Lo's choreographer JR Taylor tweeted around the time of the performance, 'I wonder where all my Turkmenistan followers are!? Hit me up!'

The tweet was later deleted, as someone apparently filled Taylor in on the fact that the people of Turkmenistan weren't allowed to tweet.

Lopez later apologized for the performance. Her publicist released a statement saying that had the singer been aware of Turkmenistan's human rights abuses, she would not have accepted the gig.

Sources: The Guardian, TheThings.com.