Jennifer Lopez Glamour Magazine September 2010

I’ll make this quick, as I realise that I’m taking the unusual step of posting three back-to-back magazine posts: every famous person in the world is covering every magazine. Okay, perhaps not. Some women are covering some well-known magazines. While wearing some clothes. Or not, in the cases of Lindsay Lohan for Maxim and Katy Perry for Rolling Stone. Jennifer Lopez is one of those women who is covering a magazine that I’ve been unlikely to pick up at the grocery store for some years now, Glamour, for its September issue. She is posing for a retro-style shoot and is threatening to release her LOVE? album.

On time off while having her twins: “It’s funny—I don’t feel like I’ve been anywhere, except kind of on maternity leave. It’s been great, and I definitely feel renewed vigor for my career. I didn’t [plan on taking two years off]. In my mind I first felt like, Oh, I’ll be back to work right after the babies are born. But then you don’t want to. Even now, it’s very difficult for me to leave them in the morning. It just tortures me. I’m like, It’s been hours; are they wondering where I am? Do they know that I love them so much and I’m thinking only about them?”
On her parenting style: “I’m the one who keeps everybody on schedule, like, Got to go to bed at this time, got to eat something…. I was talking about this with somebody—they asked, ‘Do you still love working?’ I said, ‘I just do it quicker.’ There’s no ‘Go to the studio, have dinner, sit there.’ I don’t have all the time in the world anymore.”
On her post-pregnancy regime: “I did the triathlon six months after the babies were born, and part of that was about giving myself a goal. Maybe it was an emotional thing: Like, that tiger’s still in there. But it takes a year [after pregnancy]. You’re not going to get slim in six weeks. For me, it’s been back and forth. Now, two years later, I feel really back to normal. I would [do it again] if I didn’t have to swim in the ocean. That really scared me! If it were in a pool, I’d do it again in a minute. It’s an amazing thing to push yourself and to accomplish a goal like that.”
On her image versus her home life: “I like to maintain a certain sense of fantasy in my life. I am kind of like that at home. Do I have the full hair and makeup? No. But I might have the nice dress on.”
On whether she regrets being a famewhore: “I don’t regret what I’ve been through. I’ve had ups and downs, super highs and some really low lows. I’ve been so blessed that I could never say, ‘I wish this didn’t happen.’ It’s part of who I am. There’s nothing in my life that’s so ugh. Yes, there are some things that I’m like, Eww, but not where I’m worried about [Max and Emme] finding out. I’ll tell them myself. No secrets from them.”
On cooking at home: “Marc doesn’t cook, but he will prepare an occasional turkey. I like to cook Puerto Rican food. That’s what I grew up on: rice, beans, meat, some Italian-American food. I know my way around the kitchen. We enjoy having that normalcy, because we don’t have that much of it. We really are a traveling gypsy family.”
On her attitude change as she gets older: “I didn’t experience doubt until later in my life. When I was young, I was just about hard work. But as I got older, I did experience anxiety, doubt, judgment, and it’s so easy to lose yourself for a second. I always joke about letting the haters motivate you. Everybody has that in their life, people who doubt them or make them feel less than they are. It just takes faith and belief in yourself, and you’ve got to dig deep into that. That has to come from you—nobody’s going to give you that. You can have a great mentor, a great partner, a great love in your life who gives you confidence and makes you feel great about yourself. And that’s all wonderful, but at the end of the day, if you don’t believe it, all of that means nothing.”
On her LOVE? album: “For me, love is the never-ending question. It is confusing. It is the answer, but it is also inundated with contradictions and complications. It’s about years of experience in different relationships, and kind of the culmination of that, and how even to this day, I’m still learning.”