Here's her advice for knowing your worth...
Jennifer Lopez is one of the most talked about women in the world, from her iconic red carpet looks and sassy remarks to her relationship with American baseball player Alex Rodriguez (A Rod).
But it wasn’t her love life that got the attention of the world this week. Instead, all eyes were on the 'Jenny From The Block' singer as she opened up about her insecurities, confessing that she too had body and career hang ups.
Yes, really. She may have enviable genes (seriously, we want to bottle and sell them), but when it comes to insecurities, J-Lo is just like us.
‘I don’t let the opinions of others really influence how I think about myself,’ the 49-year-old explained in a discussion before the screening of her new film, Second Act. ‘That took a long time, because in the early part of my career I did and it made me feel really bad about myself.’
She continued: ‘So I came out and my first song went to no. 1, my first album went to no. 1, and my first movie went to no. 1, and I was like “yeah, I’m killin’ it.” And then everyone was like “she can’t sing, she can’t dance, she can’t act - she’s just a pretty face” or “her butt is big”, or whatever they were saying about me, and I started thinking “yeah, that’s true.” And it really hurt me for a long time.’
But how did she get through it? True grit, with the singer explaining that she couldn’t let people who didn’t know her shape what she thought of herself.
‘Despite the hurt and the pain I just kept going,’ she explained. ‘I just couldn’t allow myself to let that become who I was. I was like “no, I’m going to make another record, I’m going to make another song, I’m going to make another movie, I’m a great actress, I’m a great singer, I’m a great dancer. I’m great at this stuff and I’m going to keep going.” And I did. And that’s all I did — I kept going.’
‘I just started working harder, harder than everybody else. And I saw that I was working harder than everybody else, and it started paying off, but more than that I started believing in myself, I started believing in the fact that I wasn’t an impostor, that I wasn’t a fake, that there was a reason I kept doing this and people kept hiring me. It was like “OK, maybe I am good at this…” But it took time and it took me to believe in myself.’
Well, that’s our daily dose of inspiration!
