Jennifer Lopez: A design for living

(CBS News) The singer-actress is also a fashionable business tycoon who tells our Lee Cowan "workaholic" is not a dirty word:

(An earlier version of this report was originally broadcast on May 19, 2013.)

It left very little to the imagination; that green Versace dress that Jennifer Lopez wore to the Grammys back in 2000 was a daring design, to say the least.

But fashion has always been JLo's passion -- stylishly showing off those famous curves, both on stage and off.

With her recent single with rapper Pitt Bull, "Live It Up," Lopez isn't just back to making music. She's back at the design table, too.

She inked a multi-million dollar design deal with retailing giant Kohl's two years ago. Now, you name it -- and HER name is on it.

She's even designed her own brand of bedding -- in addition to the sportswear, dresses, handbags, jewelry, shoes and sleepwear.

Does it get overwhelming? asked Cowan.

"Of course! Of course it's overwhelming sometimes," Lopez replied. "And yes, you're right, at times, I'm like, Whoa, what am I taking on? I'm taking on so much. It's so overwhelming.

"But I feel like, life is overwhelming, and you can't be afraid of that."

She got the attention of Forbes Magazine, which put her at the top of its list of the World's Most Powerful Celebrities last year, in part because her deal with Kohl's was so big -- a 20-year contract with seven-year options.

"But that's crazy, right?" said Cowan.

"I don't know, who likes to talk about this stuff? Not me!" she replied. "I just like to play clothes, you know what I mean? Like, let's design the clothes and let's have fun. And what colors are we going to use? And ooh, I think you should do this shape. You know, like that's my fun part."

And that "fun part" is only a fraction of her design drive.

As a Chief Creative Officer, JLo is helping design a network, too: NUVO-TV, the first English-language cable station geared to a Latino audience.

"It seems that anything with a creative, design bent, you're all over it," said Cowan.

"That's my thing," she replied.

She is certainly in demand -- and sometimes it's gotten her in trouble.

In June she headlined a birthday party for the leader of Turkmenistan, a country with a dismal human rights record. Lopez later apologized.

She broke onto the scene in 1997 in "Selena," the biography of the late Tejano music star. She soon branched into her own music -- and her career took off.

In January 2001 she made history: her album, "JLo," hit number one -- at the SAME time she had the week's number one movie, "The Wedding Planner."

"I can be an artist when I have to be an artist. But I can also, you know, be sensible and be a business person and kind of go by the numbers when I have to," Lopez said.

Her interest in design didn't start with jewelry or clothes. It started with a fragrance: Glow. She met resistance to pushing a celebrity fragrance.

"It's funny, most things I did in my life or I've done in my career have been that kind of reaction," Lopez said. "When I started as an actress and I wanted to do music, it was like, Ah, actresses don't do music.. And I was like, Well, I want to do music.

"And then as I got offered a L'Oreal contract, they were like, Ah, real actresses and singers don't do L'Oreal contracts. I was like, Well, I feel like I want to do that. You should not do 'American Idol,' that will be the end of it for you. And I was like, No, I kind of feel like I want to do that, too!"

Rumors are swirling she'll return to "American Idol" this year -- after all, it has been a pretty good business decision.

"I felt like people really got to know my real personality and who I really was and the things that were important to me, and that I was an emotional person and that I had feelings, and that I liked to laugh and that I could be loving, you know what I mean?" she told Cowan. "It was like, Oh, she's a real person."

But despite running her business empire, at 44 Jennifer Lopez is most focused on designing something else: a family. She's the mother of five-year-old twins. They haven't slowed her down -- just changed her priorities a bit.

But, she says, she still feels like a workaholic.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. But people use that like a dirty word," Lopez said. "I think we're supposed to work a lot in this life, you know what I mean? That's what it's about. It is about being productive in this life, and doing something with your life and being proud of what you're doing with your life that make you kind of an interesting and fulfilled person at the end of the day."

For more info:

• jenniferlopez.com
• Jennifer Lopez on Facebook
• "Live It Up" (featuring Pitbull) on iTunes
• Jennifer Lopez collection at Kohls.com
• NUVO-TV
• beyondbeautifuljlo.com (Jennifer Lopez fan site)