Jennifer Lopez and Donatella Versace‘s designs have long been one of the strongest and most iconic fashion pairings on the red carpet for the past decade.
The singer and the style tastemaker are also close friends, which was something beautiful to develop out of something very tragic, the “El Anillo” singer told Vogue.
Explaining why she’ll be wearing “something Versace” to the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards where she’ll be accepting the MTV Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award on Aug. 20, Lopez, 49, said she wanted to honor their bond.
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The star was first introduced to Donatella, 63, in 1999 at the Met Gala, just two years after her brother Gianni, 50, was brutally murdered by serial killer Andrew Cunanan on the front steps of his mansion in Miami.
“My heart went out to her [Donatella]. I just kept touching her and holding her hand,” Lopez said to Vogue.
“She felt so fragile at the time. And she remembered that and we kind of bonded after that. She was so kind and so sweet to me, and we always kept in touch. She was always sending me dresses for whatever I needed,” Lopez explained to Vogue describing she and Donatella’s first encounter.
“It was a natural organic relationship that wasn’t forced. It is a friendship that goes back many years,” Lopez, who attended the 2015 Met Gala with Donatella, also told the magazine.
Since then, Lopez has worn Versace numerous times on the red carpet, the most memorable of which was at the 2000 Grammy Awards when the singer stepped out in her now iconic super low-cut tropical-printed Versace dress.
On just this week on Wednesday, Lopez turned heads in a pair of denim Versace boots from the house’s Resort 2019 collection.
The design house’s founder, Gianni, died after he was shot twice in the head by Cunanan, who was 27-years-old at the time. He died almost instantly.
Before Gianni, Cunanan went on a country-wide murder spree killing former friend Jeffrey Trail, 28, in Minneapolis, ex-boyfriend David Madson, 33, whose body was found on the shore of Rush Lake, Michigan, Chicago real estate millionaire Lee Miglin, and caretaker William Reese, 45.
Cunanan used Reese’s Chevy pickup truck to drive to Miami. Cunanan took his own life days after killing Gianni on a houseboat in the Miami area.
