Jennifer Lopez used a new appearance on the SmartLess podcast to revisit two painful chapters in her romantic life, her split from Ben Affleck and her divorce from Marc Anthony. Speaking with hosts Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes, the 56-year-old singer and actress discussed motherhood, aging and self-discovery, but also delivered pointed remarks about past relationships.
Lopez said that after her divorce from Affleck she canceled her tour to stop everything and focus on herself. She described the period as a turning point, saying she asked herself, “What’s happening with you? Forget everything else. There is no one to blame here except yourself in a certain sense. What are you doing? What is really going on with you?” She also said people sometimes “do not behave very well,” and added with a smile that she would be happy to share the full story with the hosts “over a glass of wine.”
She said she reached a point where her life felt like it had “exploded in my face,” and that she had spent years examining recurring patterns in her romantic life. Lopez said she learned to return to the little girl she had once been and tell her, “You did all of this. Give yourself some love. Stop looking for love in other places and give it to yourself.” She credited her sister Linda with reminding her to be “the guardian of herself,” and said the last two years have been a healing process that changed her completely.
The discussion then turned to her 18-year-old twins with Marc Anthony, Emme and Max, who are preparing to leave home for college. Lopez said both children were accepted to every college they wanted, received scholarships, and will attend the schools of their choice. She then said, “I said to myself, ‘You did it alone. That’s great. You had very little help, you know?’” The comment came less than a month after reports that Anthony was not seen at Emme’s graduation in Los Angeles, and he was also not seen at Max’s graduation earlier this month. Lopez and Anthony were married from 2004 to 2014, and their twins were born in February 2008. In March, Lopez also spoke about that divorce during a Las Vegas performance, joking that after her third divorce she had “started to get good at it,” before saying it was “not funny” and describing the experience as very hard. She said she was close to giving up while trying to cope as a single mother of two 3-year-olds, and ended with the advice, “Keep dancing, even when you make mistakes along the way.”
