Jennifer Lopez‘s kids gave her a “wake-up call” about parenting.
The Kiss of a Spider Woman star, 56, who shares twins Max and Emme, 17, with ex-husband Marc Anthony, opened up about a candid conversation she had with her teens during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They spoke to me, [and] they’re like, ‘You’re not a regular mom. You’re not here every day. You don’t drop us off and pick us up [like the other parents],’” Lopez said during a Wednesday, October 15, appearance on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show. “And I realized how much they needed me there.”
Lopez and Anthony, 57, married in June 2004. They split in July 2011 and finalized their divorce three years later.
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According to Lopez, as a single mom, she spent a lot of time working to provide for her children, but she realized that “it wasn’t just about me giving them a great life.”
“It was about me being there for them all the time. I started trying to balance that a little bit more,” Lopez said.
The “On the Floor” singer described the conversation as a “wake-up call,” adding, “I just was like, ‘OK, you’re gonna know — if you didn’t know before how much I love you and that you were the main thing in my life — everything I do for you, you’re gonna f***ing know now.’”
These days, Lopez prioritizes her children over her work commitments. “So if I say, ‘I can’t do this because of the kids,’ they just, they don’t even touch it,” Lopez said. “They respect it in a way that they know it’s a losing battle. There’s nothing they can say. If I say no, it’s no.”
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During Wednesday’s wide-ranging interview with host Howard Stern, Lopez also opened up about her love life, admitting that she feels she’s never been truly loved.
“What I learned, it’s not that I’m not lovable — it’s that they’re not capable. … They don’t have it in them,” Lopez said. “And they gave me what they had. They gave me all of it, every time. All the rings, all the things I could ever want. The houses, the rings, the marriage. All of it.”
Addressing her recent divorce from Ben Affleck, the actress said she realized she “didn’t love” herself, which ultimately led to issues in her four marriages.
“When I got divorced this last time, it was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Lopez said. “Because it really made me journey into — I mean, I had a religious coach, I had a therapist, a couples therapist, an individual therapist, I had a coach to understand addiction. I had everything. I was like, ‘I’m gonna f***ing figure this s*** out if it kills me.’”
Lopez also talked about passing on a role in the 2002 movie Unfaithful, which ultimately earned actress Diane Lane an Oscar nomination.
“It’s funny. It haunts me,” Lopez admitted.
