Jennifer Jareau

Jennifer "JJ" Jareau is a fictional character from the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds, portrayed by AJ Cook.

Character background

During various episodes, Jareau has described growing up in a small town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When she was eleven, her seventeen-year-old sister Rosaline committed suicide by cutting. Rosaline's death was a particularly painful topic for her and she initially chose not to tell her young son about Rosaline, until her mother Sandy reminded her that avoidance was not the solution to dealing with the pain. A high school athlete, Jareau graduated valedictorian from East Allegheny High School, where she was the captain of the varsity soccer team her senior year and earned an athletic scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh. She also attended Georgetown, presumably for graduate studies.

JJ decided to join the FBI after attending a book reading by BAU founder and then-Unit Chief Agent David Rossi. She once told Rossi that she had not known what to do with her life until she listened to his reading, which was held in the campus bookstore during her senior year in college. The next fall, she applied to the FBI Academy.