Bronx-raised Lopez dropped out of college after one semester and lived on the floor of a dance studio while she pursued her career, balancing working at a law firm, taking dance classes and performing in clubs. Her first big job as a backup dancer for New Kids on the Block led to her attention-getting gig as a “Fly Girl” on TV’s In Living Color. Since then, the performer has skyrocketed into stardom as an award-winning singer, actress, fashion designer and television personality—the newest judge on American Idol.

Berry made history as the first black woman to win a Best Actress Oscar, for her moving performance as a single mother in 2001’s Monster’s Ball. But long before that, it was Berry’s own mother who raised two daughters alone after her abusive husband left. The family moved out of inner city Cleveland and Berry found success on the pageant circuit as a Miss USA runner-up. Five years later she landed her big break in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. See her this December in the megastar ensemble film New Year’s Eve.

What’s worse than growing up poor? Growing up with no heat. "My parents couldn’t always pay the heating bills," the country star said to Reader's Digest. "We had to go to bed with many layers on and our clothes or coat. A lot of winters I got frostbite." Twain supported her younger siblings after their parents died in a car accident by singing in Canadian resorts. What started out as a means to pay the bills quickly turned into a multiplatinum music career.

She grew up on a Texas farm, in a family with lots of love but very little money. After a local beauty pageant win, Longoria moved to Los Angeles and landed a recurring role on The Young and the Restless, earning minimum wage. In 2004, she was cast on the long-running Desperate Housewives and her career as an actress and spokesperson soared. Her first book, Eva's Kitchen: Cooking with Love for Family and Friends hit shelves in April.

Hear the story of Celine Dion’s childhood and Dickensian images will run through your mind: multiple children sharing a bed, family sing-a-longs, mama warming socks in the oven on cold Canadian nights. (The family of 14 lived on as little as $165 a week!) Dion was eventually scouted by her manager-turned-husband, Rene Angelil, and began her ascent to the throne of pop royalty. She is currently in the midst of her $100 million, three-year gig in Las Vegas’s Caesar’s Palace. Talk about a fairytale ending.

When Jewel splashed onto the ’90s music scene with a haunting, folk-tinged single called "Who Will Save Your Soul?", not many knew that she’d written her debut while hanging out on the shores of a California beach, barely employed and living out of a Volkswagen van. "If I could afford an apartment, I couldn’t afford a car," she has said. "If I could afford to pay rent, I couldn’t afford food."

"We lived in the ghetto," Blige has said of her childhood. "I’d hear women screaming and running down the halls from guys beating up on them. People chased us with weapons. . . . It was a dangerous place." In 2002 she declared "no more drama" in her life. That meant wiping her slate clean of past demons, including addiction and domestic abuse. The hip-hop star, who recently closed the 2011 Essence Music Festival, has finally come into her own. 

“I came here with $35 in my pocket,” the iconic boundary-buster has said about her move from Michigan to New York after high school. “It was the bravest thing I'd ever done." The aspiring dancer struggled to make ends meet while working at Dunkin’ Donuts before finding work as a backup dancer. Thirty years and many reinventions later, Madonna is now the best-selling female recording artist of all time.

Before she was a sitcom star, Barr was a high school dropout working as a waitress. The jokes she cracked to her customers helped her develop her "domestic goddess" shtick, a routine that would catapult her from the comedy clubs of Denver to Hollywood.

Read more about women who have reinvented themselves HERE.

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