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You may be hard-pressed to find a celebrity out there that doesn’t have some secrets to hide and when you’re out in the limelight, it can be difficult to hide from those secrets. For the most part, Jennifer Lopez is an open book when it comes to her family or her love life. If you have seen her in interviews, however, you know that there are certain things that she avoids talking about. She’s been married multiple times and we don’t think that she always has the right idea when it comes to the choosing the men in her life. It may have to do with the fact that she calls herself a “love addict.” “Some go out and party and sleep around, but that’s just not my way. I found the comfort in someone else. That's called being a love addict." That certainly may explain why her marriages don’t last or that her relationships end up being so short.
She’s definitely made some mistakes over the years, like that time she made the movie Gigli with then-boyfriend Ben Affleck. The things you do when you’re in love, am I right? She’s gorgeous, talented and seems to have the fountain of youth inside that foxy body of hers but she does have a past that she just can’t seem to hide from. Don’t we hate it when our skeletons start falling out of the closet? Check out these 24 things about Jennifer Lopez’ past she can’t escape.
Jennifer Lopez Loves Her Exes
There are probably a lot of women who are guilty of going back to their exes. There is just something comforting about returning to a familiar place and it’s worse if we still have feelings for the person. People say she has gone back to her exes for hookups, but it probably has more to do with the fact that she’s a “love addict” and probably still has feelings for them. She and Ben Affleck were a mismatched pair and no one really believed they would make it to the altar and we were proven correct when they called off their wedding in 2004. In 2015, she told the Wendy Williams that there was an ex from her past who would remain nameless that she would often return to. Tell us who it is Jen! Wendy asked her, "Have you ever hooked up with an ex after publicly breaking up?" Jennifer answered, "Yeah." Wendy was relentless however and asked if it was Ben Affleck and Jennifer answered, "No, I won't answer that." We're definitely not convinced. She did something similar with Casper Smart who she had an on again off again thing with for five years.
Jennifer Totally Forgot Her Table Manners
She’s beautiful, but all that can change in a minute when table manners get thrown out the door. Last year when she was filming the movie Second Act she found herself sitting at a table between cuts and all decorum went out the window. She was pictured not only digging in her nose a little bit but yawning incessantly and adjusting her bra. She looked great while she sat having a glass of wine with her onscreen boyfriend Milo Ventimiglia, if only she weren’t picking her nose. We pretty much fell in love with that guy in the TV series This Is Us. Maybe she finds his company boring, but she was all over the place any time the camera would stop rolling. We have to wonder what was going through Milo’s head at the time. Either way, it wasn’t one of her better moments. She likely doesn’t care, when it comes to her life, she feels that she’s only getting better as she gets older.
“I seriously feel like the best days are ahead, and I like the idea of getting to do everything I did before but with more knowledge, experience, and street smarts.
There's a certain love, appreciation, and gratitude that you have at 40 that you don't have when you're younger, and it makes every accomplishment feel so much better.”
She Rushes Into Things
Well, she is a self-proclaimed “love addict” but the girl is definitely rarely single and it may have a lot to do with the fact that she rushes into relationships, sometimes one right after the other. When Jennifer Lopez first started becoming big in the industry, she was dating Diddy. They were together for a couple years before Diddy got himself in trouble with the law and Jenny From The Block bailed. In 2000, she met Cris Judd on the set of her video Love Don’t Cost a Thing and before we knew it the two were married a year later.
That was also the same year that she broke up with Diddy, so she went straight from Diddy to Cris and married him. After her separation from Cris, she moved onto Ben Affleck a year later.
The two were also supposed to be married a year later but called it quits in 2004. The girl definitely likes to marry her men quickly. She then moved onto Marc Anthony whom she did marry, but that was only six months after she left Affleck. It must have been a rebound because how does she get over these men so easily? That marriage, of course, didn’t last either probably because she doesn’t deal with her past relationships before moving onto the next.
That Time She Crossed The Line
It’s been seventeen years since Jennifer Lopez's racial slur incident, but it's something that often comes back to haunt her in the media. A single from her second album almost cost the girl her career. The Murder, Inc. remix of “I’m Real” had J-Lo dropping foul word in the final verse. “Now people screaming what the deal with you and so and so. I tell them [...] mind their business, but they don’t hear me, though.” J-Lo at the time thought that she was “down with it” and that it would be okay for her to use the word. It definitely hit No. 1 and stayed there for five weeks, but there were a lot of people who were pissed about the whole thing. Shock jocks Star and Bucwild started to incite the incident by telling their callers to contact her record label and complain. “I’m sure a lot of young Spanish kids use the word,” Star told Daily News. “But when you reach her level — a level where you have a platform — why is she using a word that’s derogatory to Blacks? If you’re a so-called role model, don’t spit in the face of African Americans.” She defended herself on the Today Show stating, “For anyone to think or suggest that I’m racist is really absurd and hateful to me. The use of the word in the song… it was actually written by Ja Rule [and] it was not meant to be hurtful to anybody.”
J-Lo’s Mother Has Issues
J-Lo’s mother is known to have a gambling habit and sometimes, J-Lo has even joked about it even though it’s probably not a laughing matter. There was certainly a time in her career where she was trying to keep her mother’s habit quiet. After all, no one wants a scandal, especially early on in one’s career. It’s likely that J-Lo takes care of her mother these days, but it’s also known that her mom likes to spend a ton of money at the casino. It’s likely that her mother is even a million in her own right. She once went to the Borgata hotel and casino in Atlantic City, headed to the “Wheel of Fortune” slot machines where she threw down a $3 bet. That bet won her the whopping $2.4 million jackpot for that slot machine. Talk about one lucky girl. Sure, she got lucky that night, but how much money has she blown over the years trying to get that jackpot. That’s the problem with hardcore gamblers, they aren’t always winning and when they lose, they often lose big. It is interesting that one of the reasons why J-Lo ended things with Affleck was over his “gambling problems,” yet her mother has the same issues.
Her Father Is A Scientologist
That’s one thing that you don’t see Jennifer Lopez talking much about. Thankfully, she hasn’t been pulled into that circle, but her father is very much a part of the organized religion. He definitely doesn’t have the status that Tom Cruise has in the religious social circle, though. In fact, J-Lo’s father is broke and he can thank Scientology for that. Her father, David, has been a member of the church for more than 30 years. He told RadarOnline that he’s given the church a big chunk of his money.
“Oh, believe me, more than I care to mention. I would say hundreds of thousands!”
That’s not at all surprising. Leah Remini had exposed some of these things about Scientology. In her TV show Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, she stated that members often have to purchase courses from the church and they can cost thousands of dollars. If the church ever decided to update the courses to a new version, members have to pay for the new course all over again.
She's Had Rough Moments In Hollywood
When the #MeToo movement came around, Jennifer Lopez was another actress that came forward to speak about what she went through. She opened up about her experience during an interview with Harper’s Bazaar. The interviewer asked Jennifer Lopez if she had ever been harassed during her time in Hollywood. J-Lo admitted she hadn’t had the same experiences as other women who came forward. “But have I been told by a director to take off my shirt and show my boobs? Yes, I have,” she said. “But did I, do it? No, I did not.” The incident happened during the filming of one of her first movies.
“When I did speak up, I was terrified. I remember my heart beating out of my chest, thinking, ‘What did I do? This man is hiring me!'”
She was just a beginner in the industry at the time, but she was aware enough to know that the behavior “wasn’t right.” “But I think ultimately the Bronx in me was like, ‘Nah, we’re not having it,'” she said. She was certainly one of the lucky ones.
She Knows That Her Children Feel A Void
When it comes to having a marriage and then having children, it’s really important to try to choose the right man. If the marriage doesn’t work out, then it’s the children in the end that are hurt by the situation. Sure, the parents get hurt and they have to move on from a marriage, but the children are the innocent parties that get hurt when they did nothing wrong. Jennifer Lopez has had to acknowledge the fact that she left her children’s father Marc Anthony and that the children have dealt with different men in their lives. "It's not easy," Lopez said of being a single mom.
"I'm from a traditional background. It takes two people to make a kid for a reason. It’s tough because I know they feel the void of that male presence. When Marc and I first broke up, I did think, 'I wish I could have held this together.'
But when you realize it’s not the right thing for anybody, you think: ‘Okay, well how do we make this work, how do we make this better, how do we make this great for the children anyway?'" It’s always tough when you have kids.
She Wasn’t Always Fit
When she was one of the Fly Girls on In Living Color, she wasn’t the fit girl that we know today. It really just goes to show how far she's come over the years. She used to be a backup singer and now look where she is. When you look back on the videos during her time on In Living Color, it’s pretty obvious that she was much fuller in the face back then. At the time, her manager was harassing her a lot to lose weight. She ended up firing that manager because he was so focused on her weight.
“They kept telling me to lose weight. And I was a dancer and I was athletic and even my manager at the time, who I no longer work with, was telling me, ‘You need to lose weight. You need to be thinner.’ I was like, ‘No I don’t. If I lose any more weight, it won’t be me.’”
These days, it’s completely different for the actress and singer because she is all about fitness now and her body has changed quite a bit over time. “Staying in shape is like being in training. It’s like being an athlete. You have to eat for power and for what you need.”
She Used To Give Her Boyfriend An Allowance
Jennifer Lopez met Casper Smart when he was hired to be one of her backup dancers for her world tour. It wasn’t long before the two were dating and then calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend. They were on-again, off-again for five years, though there were many times when it seems like he was more of her assistant than a boyfriend. What was even more bizarre was the fact that she gave him a $10,000 allowance every week. Obviously, he was not in the same league as she was career-wise, but wouldn’t it be embarrassing to get an allowance from your girlfriend? Apparently, she did it so that she wouldn’t have to pay for him every time the two went out because that would be so much more embarrassing. “She hated having to whip out her credit card every time they go to dinner,” a source said.
“Jen figured it’s easier to give Casper a weekly stipend, and she thought $10,000 was a nice round number.”
There are a few strings attached like in this picture where it seems like he’s at her beck and call. “Jen doesn’t want to go over the top, showering Casper with too much, but she also wants him to up his game,” the source continues. “Jen is hoping Casper won’t think twice about buying presents for her kids or whisking her off for a surprise weekend getaway.”
She Suffered From Anxiety During Her Third Divorce
Well, getting divorced three times would certainly do that to someone. Jennifer Lopez always comes across as someone who is very independent and strong. During her third divorce, she had stated that she suffered from anxiety at the time. When she was deciding whether or not to end her marriage, it just wasn’t a great time for her. The two had been together for seven years and they had children together. She had told about the time when she knew her relationship was over for good in her book True Love.
"As I sat there getting made up, my heart was beating out of my chest and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I became consumed with anxiety. What was happening to me?
I leaped from my chair and said to my dear manager Benny Medina, 'Benny, something is happening! I feel like I'm going crazy.’ My mom was there and she rushed to my side too. It was one of those moments when you're so scared you can't even scream. In a blur of fear and panic, I looked at Benny and my mother and blurted out the words: 'I don't think I can be with Marc anymore.' Then I burst into tears."
Her First Marriage Only Lasted 10 Months
We almost forgot about her first marriage entirely. Her first marriage is certainly something that Jennifer Lopez wishes she could forget. Her relationship and eventual marriage to Ojani Noa was as quick as it was insignificant. We know that this girl is addicted to love but it seems like she just rushes into marriages and leaves them just as quickly. She was only married to him for ten months before they got a divorce. Unfortunately, this is one marriage that ended up affecting the singer long term. At the time, J-Lo was a rising star and her ex decided to take advantage of that.
He tried to write a tell-all book about his short marriage to Lopez.
He claimed that J-Lo betrayed him multiple times, among other things. Thankfully for her, she was able to stop the book’s release because she had a signed confidentiality agreement that stopped him from discussing their relationship. It’s a good thing that she had that in place. In the end, he had to pay her a settlement because he broke the contract by attempting to discuss their personal relationship. At the time, she was married to Marc Anthony when she was still dealing with her ex and she wanted the situation to be over with. It’s pretty obvious that her ex was just jealous of her success since their breakup and was trying to make some money off her.
Her Second Marriage Didn’t Even Last As Long
Jennifer Lopez is two for two when it comes to marriages that have lasted under a year. You would think that she would have learned from the first marriage, not to rush into things. When it comes to her marriage to Cris Judd, she was wooed by a backup dancer and it wouldn’t be the last backup dancer that she dated. The two started dating and it wasn’t long before they were married in 2001. Just a short nine months later, she was filing for divorce and it was Cris Judd who was left reeling. Judd had a hard time dealing with the fame that came with being married to Lopez and it was something he didn’t like.
"You know it's very tough. Your privacy is breached. You're no longer a normal person. Our wedding was a circus.
I think several people got arrested trying to climb up a mountain trying to sneak in. We actually rented the airspace," Judd said of his relationship to Jennifer. He didn’t go out and try to write a tell-all book, in fact, he’s never spoken badly about Lopez even though it was obvious that he had been hurt by the whole thing.
She Was Once Homeless
You may not be aware that Jennifer Lopez was once homeless when she was a teenager. Where was her gambling mother, we have to ask? These days, the singer and actress is worth around $250 million, but when she was 18 years old, she didn’t have a home at all. During an interview with W magazine, she told them that she was forced to crash on the sofa at her dance studio after fighting with her mother. Apparently, her mother didn’t like her career choices at the time and kicked her out. Bet she’s regretting that now. Lopez, of course, was trying to pursue a career in showbiz at the time and her mother thought it was a stupid idea. So, J-Lo moved out. “My mom and I butted heads,” she told the magazine.
“I didn’t want to go to college. I wanted to try dance full-time. So she and I had a break.”
I started sleeping on the sofa in the dance studio. I was homeless, but I told her, 'This is what I have to do.'" It sure wasn’t long after that before she started making connections. “A few months later, I landed a job dancing in Europe,” she said. “When I got back, I booked 'In Living Color.' I became a Fly Girl and moved to L.A. It all happened in a year.”
Her Ex-Husband Tried To Make Money Off Of Her
When she was dealing with her ex-husband Ojani Noa, he was trying every avenue possible to make money off of her. At the time he was talking about his tell-all book, he claimed to have a tape of him and Jennifer Lopez from their 1997 honeymoon. He titled his intimate tape How I Married Jennifer Lopez: The J.Lo and Ojani Noa Story which he wanted to release at the time. Again, it’s a good thing she was able to prevent him from doing that. The video had J-Lo walking around in skimpy clothing as well as her fighting with her mother. That was just part of the intimacy that was involved in the video. We’re not sure why he was going around taping everything, but in the end, he lost because she hit him with a $10 million lawsuit if he even dared to release the video. She had rights of course because of the confidentiality agreement that he signed when they got together. It’s no wonder their relationship didn’t last, he doesn’t sound like a very nice person.
References: dailymail.co.uk, usmagazine.com, variety.com, usmagazine.com, hollywoodlife.com
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