14 DAY TRIAL // Jennifer Lopez made her official comeback to the spotlight at the American Music Awards 2009 with a live rendition of her latest single off the upcoming “Love?” album, “Louboutins.” The event was marked though by one minor incident, when the singer fell flat on her backside in the middle of the dance routine, an incident she now explains in an interview cited by People magazine.
The choreography had Lopez climbing on the backs of her male dancers, hunched as they were to make an imaginary staircase. It was from the top of that staircase that she jumped, only to land on her bum. She got up immediately though, but the entire thing did get people to wonder about what could have gone so wrong as to make Jennifer, usually a very good dancer and a perfectionist to the core, lose her balance like that. It was the fact that the dancers had no shirts on, the singer herself says.
“I have a bruised bone. What happened was one of the dancers’ backs was slippery from sweat and lights and everything. We never bargained for that because they always had T-shirts on in rehearsal. So they were barebacked, didn’t have shirts on for the performance, and when I stepped on their backs my feet got wet. So when I landed, it just slipped from under me.” Jennifer says of the fall.
Luckily for her, she did not have time to mop around over it, as she had a performance to put on, and that also lessened the pain a lot. “That’s kind what I felt the rest of the performance: Did I fall? It happened so fast. I was up and all I could think was, I have to get the next beat. I have to do this dance solo right now. I had no time to think about it. Then I get to the back, and one the dancers was like, ‘Are you OK?’ Oh my god that’s right, I fell. It was awful, but, you know, it happened.” the singer further explains.
Viewers of the American Music Awards on the East Coast got to see the fall live. Those on the West Coast were not as lucky, with ABC deciding to edit out that segment of the performance, as we also informed you at the time. Regardless of these attempts, by the time the West Coast got to see the awards ceremony on TV, video of Lopez falling had already gone viral.