She was born in the Castle Hill area of New York's Bronx on the 24th of July, 1970, growing up on Blackrock Avenue.
Her father, David, was a computer technician, eventually working for Guardian Insurance.
Mother Guadalupe (nee Rodriguez) was a kindergarten teacher working up in Westchester County.
The couple both hailed from Ponce (though David's maternal great-parents were European), the second largest city in Puerto Rico, but had met in America, where they were both brought as children.
Jennifer and her two sisters, Leslie (now a housewife and opera singer) and Lynda (a DJ, VJ and entertainment reporter), grew up in a small apartment which was "cold in the winter, hot in the summer". But "Hey", Jennifer later recalled "there was always rice and beans".
And there was music. To keep the kids off the streets, Guadalupe would encourage them to put on little performances in the front room, singing and dancing. Salsa and merengue were favourites, with West Side Story viewed on many occasions - being about their people in their kind of neighbourhood.
Jennifer claims to have seen the movie over 100 times. As a kid, she always admired Rita Moreno for her feistiness, her hot dancing and her cool boyfriend, yet ambition told her she should want to be Natalie Wood's Maria - the star.
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