Long before she became J-Lo, Jennifer Lopez was just an 18-year-old dancer from the Bronx with big dreams. She was so determined to succeed that she left home against her mother’s wishes. “My mom and I butted heads,” Lopez told W magazine this month. “I didn’t want to go to college—I wanted to try dance full-time. I was homeless.” To get by, she slept on cots in the dance studio, but the perseverance paid off—the next year, Lopez’s career took off as a Fly Girl on In Living Color.