“Anything that’s too realistic or has eyes that are too realistic, we’re out. We’re not doing it.”
Jennifer Lopez is opening up about a difficult conversation she once had with her twins.
The 56-year-old “Kiss of the Spider Woman” actress, who shares twins Max and Emme, 17, with Marc Anthony, appeared on “The Howard Stern Show” on Oct. 15 for the first time in her career.
It was a milestone moment for the two-time Grammy nominee, but nothing like the wake-up call she received as a parent during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And that wake-up call ended up changing her whole perspective on being a mom.
While talking to Stern about her split from Anthony — which was announced three years after the couple became parents — Lopez said she “almost went into hyperdrive” as a single working mom.
“I thought to myself, ‘Oh, it’s all on me. I’m going to take care of these kids for the rest of their lives,’” she recalled, per Access Hollywood.
Lopez went on to admit that she would ask her family and friends for help raising the kids while she maintained a busy work schedule in an effort to give them “the life that (she) never had.”
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But then the pandemic happened — and Jennifer Lopez’s twins opened up about a harsh truth.
“They were like 10 years old when the pandemic happened. And they spoke to me,” she told Stern.
“They’re like, ‘You’re not a regular mom, Mom. You’re not here every day. You don’t drop us off and pick us up like the other (parents),’” she recalled her kids saying to her.
Jennifer Lopez said she has the ‘best relationship’ with her twins now
Lopez and Anthony met in 1998, but didn’t start dating until 2004 when she called off her engagement to actor Ben Affleck, according to Today.com.
The couple tied the knot later that year and welcomed their twins in 2008 before announcing their split in 2011. The divorce was finalized three years later in 2014.
During her appearance on “The Howard Stern Show,” Lopez described the talk she had with her kids years later as a “wake-up call.”
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“I realized how much they needed me there,” she said of the talk. “It wasn’t just about me giving them a great life. It was about me, you know, being there for them all the time.”
That realization changed her parenting style — and the relationship she had with her twins — for the better.
“Once they come into that consciousness, because they’re babies before that and everything you do is fine, but once they start talking to you in a real way at 10, 11, 12 years old, it’s a wake-up call,” she said.
“And we have the best relationship now because I just was like, ‘Okay, you’re going to know — if you didn’t know before — how much I love you and that you were the main thing in my life,” she added.
The admission comes one week after Jennifer Lopez’s kids took to the red carpet for her newest film.
The trio were photographed together at a screening of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” in New York City on Oct. 6, per “Today” — and fans were quick to point out how much Max resembled his superstar father.
On Feb. 22, Lopez took to Instagram to wish her twins a happy birthday as they turned 17.
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“I love you beyond forever,” she wrote in the caption alongside a barrage of clips and photos of the family of three through the years.
