Marry Me opens today. I’m going to see it on Tuesday with my girlfriend for a belated Galentine’s Day date. I can tell you now: we’ll love it. It may be a terrible movie, but we will enjoy ourselves and find something to love about it because it looks cheesy and fun and we’re dedicated to having a good time. So there’s my review. Jennifer Lopez was on the Ellen DeGeneres’ show for the first time in a while. Ellen asked Jennifer about her twins, Emme and Max, who are somehow about to turn 14. I don’t know why her twins are perpetually seven years old in my mind. Anyway, since Jennifer is the mother of teenagers, she’s experiencing all the quirks of being a teen mom, like embarrassing them just by existing.
Jennifer Lopez may be a global pop star but to her children, she’s just a mom.
The 52-year-old singer and actress appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Wednesday where she chatted about her 13-year-old twins Max and Emme and revealed that they don’t think she’s as cool as her fans do.
“I’m a very affectionate mom. I like to hug them and kiss them a lot and you know, always talking to them sweet and everything,” she said. “And now they’re like, ‘Mom, no. Don’t get out of the car at school.’ Like that type of thing.”
“It hurts my heart!” Lopez added with a laugh.DeGeneres then questioned why the singer’s kids would react that way with their mother being such a notable star. Added the Marry Me star, “They love it and they don’t.”
“I think they’re very proud and they love me, I love them,” Lopez continued. “The three of us are like super, super close. But it’s a thing that people know who their mom is. They’re navigating that. They’re teenagers now… their friends know things. There’s so much on the internet…so it’s crazy.”
This makes me laugh. I feel for poor Jennifer because in this one instance, I can relate to her. Not exactly, because I’m not fawned over by millions everywhere I go, but I’ve been stopped in my tracks by a teen. I image Jennifer decked out in her J.Lo best, strutting across the living room, feeling good – when Emme looks up from her phone, gives her the once over and casually says, “Really? Those boots?” I don’t know how teens get so good at taking us down quickly, like are there classes being taught? But when they want to, they target your joy and suck it right out of your core.
Jennifer expounded a little bit more about her kids being the offspring of someone famous. People didn’t excerpt it, but I posted the segment below. Jennifer said celebrity parents hope to give their child a better life, with financial security and opportunities they didn’t have. But doing so comes, “with a different set of problems, that you never imagined. Like you think, oh this is going to solve everything, and it doesn’t. It gives them a whole different set of issues.” It’s an interesting perspective. Jennifer focused on the information on the Internet that happened before her kids were born and I get that. I had a lot to work out before I had kids. I wouldn’t necessarily want to be judged by who I was then. And I want to be the one to introduce my kids to that person and how she grew. Jennifer doesn’t get that opportunity, nor do her kids.
Here’s Jennifer’s segment. The part I reference above starts at about the 3:30 mark:
J-Lo and I have the same phone! Anyway, this is charming and as real as it can be under her special circumstances. Emme and Max look very happy and well-adjusted, which is pretty amazing considering. They’ve watched their mom fall in and out of love with unfortunate partners their whole lives. I can just imagine the eye rolling.
This.
What i like is that they are allowed to be children.
I remember a couple years back where she was interviewed by her kids.
It was absolutely charming and you can tell they spend a lot of time together.
Wow i never realised how much those kids are all Marc Anthony,not a drop of Jlo.
I was going to say the same thing. Her son. Max, looks like the spitting image of Marc Anthony to my eyes.
right? I’m sure j.lo is slightly heartbroken at that. I can’t imagine looking at my ex-husband’s face whenever I talk to my children!
As my son has gotten older, he looks so much like his father it kind of freaks me out. He’s not like him in personality at all (thank goodness!) But I’ve already told him that I worry about being on my deathbed or something and asking to have him removed!
they really do favor their dad.
@manda I think that in a lot of cases you’d be right, but I believe that JLo and MA have a good post-divorce relationship so maybe she doesn’t mind?
the two kids seem to be pretty well-adjusted and normal teens, not acting out in public, at least that we know of. maybe Grandma is quick with the chancletas. 😉
I’m curious if you all have kids. Even if they strongly favor one side or the other in looks and/or personality children are their own unique selves and you look at them as the unique individuals they are not your ex. Anyway I think emme sort of looks like Jennifer’ around her (original) mouth. Max, all Marc. I’m curious about Marc. When she went to Europe for 2 weeks, Canada all this Fall, who looks after the twins? Marc is like her opposite in that you never see him unless he’s at his movie premiere or on stage. He lives absolutely privately and she’s the complete opposite.
They really are, especially Max!
Yeah, I can imagine how annoying it would be as a teenager to have a look-at-me diva for a mother, especially one who has to have a man at her side.
I see her eyes in her daughter. With them smiling right next to each other, I do see a similarity.
I think Emme looks more like her grandma, JLo’s mom, than like her dad. Max is a mini Marc. Both are cute though.
I get where her kids are coming from. She needs to enjoy her remaining years being ‘in love.’ She has had more chances than most at Love (whatever her definition of it is). If it doesn’t work out with Ben, seriously woman STAAAAAHP. For the love of LOVE. You’re making a mockery out of it. Find true love in God, Earth, Humanity, Honesty, Modesty, Humbleness, etc. She’s made millions out of her beautiful bum and face. Please stop making life difficult for those of us that don’t think like you but share similar backgrounds. Not all us Latinx need/want/care to have big butts/made up faces/faux romances. Yet we are constantly compared to her and judged harshly because we don’t agree with how she lives her life. Angelina Jolie can teach us all sooooooo much. This world is suffering enough as it is. True love is loving one another equally.
Stepping off the soap box and retreating somewhere safe while someone comes at me about her having the choice to live the life the way she chooses.
Everyone is responsible for making sure they’re not treating a whole group of people as a monolith this late in the game. If someone is being ignorant, they’re definitely the ones who need to be called out for it. That’s a ‘Them’ problem. It’s the 21st century. But the rest of that….yikes. Holy respectability politics.
When religious people- or people who are just more Old School & Traditional- are getting a teensy bit of necessary pushback for expecting their women to replicate those values, that’s very much on the ones getting pushback. That’s not other women making life harder for the Trads.
I gotta ask why someone you don’t personally know could make life hard for you by just living their own. Why stop? Because you may have? That’s your choice. If she’s going to get married 100 more times that’s her business and maybe her kids business.
Love comes in all forms, true, but not limited to any one thing.
I believe the three of them are really close and I like that’s she aware she’s just traded one type of growing up problems for another.
I went to see Maid in Manhattan with a coworker friend like nearly twenty years ago. You don’t get many romcom queens who last decades. Her career is pretty impressive.
Yes! And she wanted to make those movies that get derided as fluff (where women experience positive things and are not killed as subjected to violence as the Oscar baity films do) as she wanted to be that Latina everywoman where before it was only just white women. That’s a huge achievement and she changed the landscape.
That’s interesting. I’m not a fan of romcoms in general (which is why I specified having gone with a work friend; it was a neutral thing we could do), and I’d be interested in seeing her in more hard hitting work (I *love* the Selena biopic. I own it on digital). But I like the idea that she deliberately makes fluffy mainstream films to have a Latina actress starring in them (and she has been in films where awful things happen to women too, but kinda hard to avoid those completely, I’m sure).
I’m embarrassed for her sometimes, so I feel for her kids. Seriously, though, I have 3 teens, and there is no way around this. Hopefully, they will outgrow it at some point.
Also, I would never want my kids to see documented on the internet some of the dumb things I did when I was younger. I guess it’s just the price of fame. And, of course, some celeb behavior is more cringey than others.
Ugh, I feel her comments on teens so much right now, lol
My youngest turns 13 tomorrow, and somehow in the span of a couple of months, I’ve gone from having a child who loves his mom and wants to hang out with her, to one that barely tolerates my presence – AND thinks they know everything, lol
My son’s “teen years” hit hard at 17. It’s like he went into his room one night and a mean, nasty stranger moved in. Lasted till he was 20. Then one night, that stranger moved out, and a man moved in. A man with the tender heart of my son, the sense of humour and the mad math skills of my son. But this person was a man, not a boy. Took some getting used to.
Many, many parents of older kids PROMISED me during the transition it would end eventually, so they gave me faith and perseverance. What I wasn’t prepared for was the man I had to get to know all over again and treat differently cause I was no longer ‘parenting’…I had been reduced in rank to ‘consultant, but only if I ask you for your advice/opinion”. That transition took me awhile, I gotta admit. Last week my brakes failed (all ok) and when I called him, he left work, travelled down from where he lives (about an hour away) to care for the dogs because the idea they’d be inside HOURS longer than expected was freaking me out more than losing my brakes!! AND he brought dinner!! We survived the teenaged years relatively intact, and now I know if I need anything, he’d bend every which way possible to make it happen. He’s a very good son and I’m grateful every day! Still, I shudder looking back at those 3 years. They were hard. But worth it!!
As a mom of a young teenage boy I really appreciate this story.
That is a very sweet story. You obviously raised a great kid.
These kids look sweet and innocent, and not fame hungry (which I totally have sympathy for, but find it depressing when celeb kids are like that)
The really do look sweet and innocent, I mean they just look like actual kids, as opposed to some celeb kids who come off as proto-influencers who look like they’re 13 going on 30. The Jolie kids are the same way, they look like actual normal kids!
So excited for Marry Me and btw, right now it’s fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with the critics consensus being:
Marry Me’s silly storyline is heavy on the “something old” and “something borrowed,” but the movie’s well-matched leads make it easy to say “I do.”
I’ll watch it this weekend and I’m so excited.
I’m a big JLo fan. I love that her kids dress like kids.
I’m excited to veg out to her new movie. I really enjoy her as an actress. She was so spectacular in movies like Selena, Hustlers and The Cell. Her rom coms are good too. I think she’s honestly a little underrated.
She really is, she recently said sometimes she feels like an underdog and it made me feel for her.
The late Roger Ebert said she was one of his favorite actresses and she constantly surprises people who give her a chance, Robert Redford had great praise when it came to her when they worked together in An Unfinished Life which is a great movie!
I wonder why she doesn’t get tired of doing these rom coms. She demonstrated she has the ability to do something with a more sophistication and a quality director in “Out of Sight.” She just doesn’t seem interested in anything other than complete froth and formula.
Hustlers? And the upcoming The Mother?
I didn’t see “Hustlers,” but isn’t it also kind of a commercial film? She’s in an enviable position as an actress. She can pick and choose her projects. Why not do something a little artier? She always picks the broadest, most commercial thing to star in. I know most posters on this site don’t like Ben Affleck, but he’s experimented with some different kinds of films. He’s taken some chances.
Both kids look like their dad, but there’s something about the girl that makes me think of an old soul. Not sure what it is.
I’m probably the only one who thinks this, but I happen think that she’s a terrible actress. Anything I saw her in, I was immediately bored. Her performances in these movies was just so flat.
Even Out of Sight?
I don’t think there are any 13 year olds anywhere who are NOT embarrassed of their parents. It’s part of Mother Nature’s plan to push them out of the nest in a few years.
Decades ago, a colleague told me that she and her husband and kids regularly went to the movies together for a night out. Her teenager got to the age when he was still willing to go with them (hey, free tickets and free popcorn), but only if he didn’t have to actually sit with them….