Jennifer Lopez gushes over ‘Off Campus’ after Mika Abdalla channels popstar
Jennifer Lopez has gushed over the new Prime Video series Off Campus after lead actress Mika Abdalla channelled the pop star’s most iconic fashion moment on screen.
The romance show became an overnight hit following its debut on Wednesday, 13 May, with its steamiest scenes quickly going viral across social media.
One particular clip that caught the eye of the 56-year-old global superstar features Abdalla’s character, Allie Hayes, recreating Lopez’s famous plunging green Versace jungle dress from the 2000 Grammys, prompting Lopez to repost the footage on X with the enthusiastic caption, “love this shooooww.”
The high-fashion moment takes place early in the series when Allie crosses paths with hockey player Dean Di Laurentis, played by Stephen Kalyn, at a Halloween party.
The legendary dress itself has quite a history in the fashion world, having first been modelled by Amber Valletta during Versace’s Spring/Summer 2000 runway show in 1999, before Lopez famously made it a cultural phenomenon at the Grammy Awards and later wore a reimagined version on the runway in 2019.
Abdalla, 26, recently took to TikTok to share the intense behind-the-scenes process required to bring the iconic outfit to life for the show.
Speaking in a clip shared by Betches UK, the actress revealed that the garment had to be built entirely from scratch, a process that required five separate fittings.
She recalled how her very first session involved putting on a nude leotard so the team could cut it up and pin the material directly to her, adding that she was so heavily taped into the finished product that she felt completely ready to dance the night away.
The actress also admitted that her own intuition told her the scene would be a massive talking point for fans, despite the fact that the Halloween storyline does not actually appear in Elle Kennedy’s original book series.
Speaking to PEOPLE, Abdalla explained that as they got closer to finishing the dress and she saw how it looked on camera during filming, she knew it was going to be a hit with the audience.
The popular new Prime Video adaptation is based on the five-book Off Campus franchise, which predominantly follows the complicated love lives of various hockey players at the fictional Briar University.
