Stealing the spotlight at the Super Bowl halftime show is the sort of career-making moment the world’s most famous musicians dream. But stealing said spotlight from your mother? And doing it at 11 years old? Girl, who do you think you are?
Apparently, if you’re Emme Maribel Muñiz, you’ve already done all the above, and you think the truth: You’re Jennifer Lopez’s daughter. Of course you’re a natural. Emme might be a global superstar by the time she learns how to drive. If I could temporarily move my brain into any body, Westworld-style, there’s an argument to be made for choosing this 12-year-old I’ve never met. Why? Because she knows something I don’t about killing the game. For instance:
She’s got pipes.
At the Super Bowl, Muñiz sang a J.Lo classic and a Bruce Springsteen classic in basically one breath! She apparently got every single one of her parents’ good genes, and she can rock a white frock better than women twice her age. She appears to have zero stage fright and is bold enough to try to out-belt her mother.
She has a twin brother.
Let me preface this by saying I, too, have a brother, and I absolutely adore him. He’s in the running for my favorite person alive. But he’s not the spawn of Jennifer Lopez, so, to be fair, he’s at an inherent disadvantage.
Emme has a twin, which is cool, obviously, but he is also so talented it’s embarrassing. His name is Maximilian—a name only super-villains, secret agents and J.Lo’s children are allowed to have—and he was recently in a youth production of the Wizard of Oz. To absolutely no one’s surprise, he’s an excellent singer. And he’s very good at riding a hover board and fetching drinks! I had Heelys once, but I don’t think I used them to get my parents cocktails. Wasted opportunity.
She’s the daughter of Marc Anthony, and her baby photos cost a lot of money.
When Emme and Maximilian were born in February 2008, the New York Times reported that People paid more than $5 million for exclusive photos of Lopez and the twins, which they published on the cover and inside the magazine.
Her nickname is “Lulu.”
Lopez revealed in an Instagram photo before her Super Bowl show that she refers to Emme as “Lulu.” They shared a very adorable mid-rehearsal cuddle session.
She’s been in a music video. Already.
Emme starred alongside her mother in J.Lo’s “Limitless” music video, even daring to lip-sync the words and look flawless doing it.
She can sing Alicia Keys.
Level with me: Have you ever tried to match Alicia Keys’s range? Like, really tried? I do not have a bad voice—I’ve played multiple Disney princesses on stage, I’m afraid to admit—but I cannot come close to a Keysian range. I once tried to sing “Empire State of Mind” at a karaoke bar in graduate school, and it did not go well.
Yet young Emme can do it with ease. Skip to 4:10 in this video and watch her sing “If I Ain’t Got You.” J.Lo got teary. I got teary.
I need lessons from this girl.
Lauren Puckett-Pope is a staff culture writer at ELLE, where she primarily covers film, television and books. She was previously an associate editor at ELLE.
