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The Friday before Ayo Edebiri hosted Saturday Night Live, with Jennifer Lopez as musical guest, TMZ unearthed a 2020 podcast interview from Ayo. Ayo appeared on the Scam Goddess pod and named Jennifer’s singing career as one of her favorite “scams.” When I covered the issue, I thought that Ayo likely spoke to J.Lo directly at SNL. Jennifer confirms that’s exactly what happened in a bonkers new Variety cover story. Jen spoke to Variety about her three new projects: the album This Is Me… Now; the musical film This Is Me… Now: A Love Story; and a documentary called The Greatest Love Story Never Told. In case you didn’t realize it, J.Lo has well and truly lost the plot. We were so worried that Ben Affleck was going to f–k up this marriage, but it’s Jennifer. She’s the one going way overboard in an attempt to celebrate her love for her fourth husband. Even Jane Fonda tried to talk her out of it, as did J.Lo’s longtime producing partner. Jennifer even put $20 million of her own money into financing these disasters. Some highlights from Variety:
Bennifer 1.0: “Our relationship crumbled under the weight of the pressure. We lost a sense of ourselves, and we needed to separate because we didn’t know how to survive it. I had to figure myself out, and he had to figure himself out.” The first time Lopez was in love with Affleck, the crush of cameras took him away from her, leading her into multiple baffling relationships. This time, Lopez is turning the tables and seems intent on sharing every shred of their love while Affleck grudgingly follows along. In the documentary, Affleck says, “Things that are private I always felt are sacred and special because, in part, they’re private.” He then delivers an understatement: “So this was something of an adjustment for me.”
The musical film features a Zodiac Love Council: “Everybody thought I was crazy,” she says with a loud laugh. “And by the way, I thought I was crazy.” Joining Jane Fonda and Trevor Noah in a partly animated musical journey through many of the songs on “This Is Me … Now” are Post Malone, Sofia Vergara, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Keke Palmer and a few other famous randos. They’re all on that Zodiac love council examining Lopez’s romantic foibles. There is a special appearance by guru to the stars Sadhguru, which, according to the documentary, added $200,000 to the film’s budget. Affleck plays a wizened TV commentator.
Even Khloe Kardashian wanted no part of this disaster: Khloé Kardashian was among many Hollywood types who declined to appear in the film despite Lopez’s requests. The irony that an icon from the most photographed family didn’t want to appear in her film was not lost on Lopez, who looks downcast in the documentary. “People are scared to put themselves out there,” she says on camera. “I get it. It took me a long time. I’m scared. But I don’t act like I’m scared — that’s the secret to my whole f–king career.”
She needs to do all of this to start the next chapter?? “I’ve been on this journey, and I’ve been trying to figure it out,” she says about her chronic quest for enduring love. ”Now I feel like because Ben and I have rediscovered each other — and now that we’re married — I have something to offer. This is the defining piece of work that’s going to close that chapter so I can move on to the next part of my life.”
She thinks the iconic “Jenny From the Block” video was a mistake. “‘Jenny From the Block’ should have been me back in the Bronx kind of walking around the neighborhood. That’s what that video should have been.” Lawrence, she says, convinced her to ask Affleck to be in the video. “We were so ourselves. And we never thought that people would take offense or be angry at us for kind of living out loud and making a cool video. We were so naive….I don’t regret it. Even though it wound up turning out ugly for us in the media, it was very defining for me in my musical trajectory. Some very beautiful, iconic images came out of that video. It’s the one thing, no matter where I go people still go, ‘Hey, there’s Jenny from the block.’”
On Ayo Edebiri’s scam comments: “She was mortified and very sweet,” says Lopez about talking to Edebiri backstage afterward. ”She came to my dressing room and apologized with tears in her eyes, saying how terrible it was that she had said those things. She felt really badly and loved my performance because we had just done my soundcheck and she actually got to hear me perform. She was just like, ‘I’m so f–king sorry, it was so awful of me.’” Lopez shrugs. “It’s funny. I’ve heard similar things said about me throughout my career, so it really didn’t affect me.”
The Ayo story – I mean, Jennifer was really making sure that everyone knows that Ayo was tearful and apologetic, which is a big choice. But I was on the side of “Ayo should privately apologize” anyway – regardless of your thoughts about J.Lo’s music career, it was a regrettable move for Ayo to trash someone famous, someone she might meet and work with some day. As Tina Fey said to Bowen Yang, “Learn from my mistakes, learn from Ayo. Podcasts are forever. Authenticity is dangerous and expensive.” Talk about celebrities like they’re your future coworkers. Ayo learned that lesson.
As for Jennifer’s whole three-project mess these days… as Variety makes abundantly clear, absolutely no one in Jennifer’s life wanted any part of this. I think she could have gotten away with an album, for sure, and maybe spent some money making some fun music videos. But the musical film PLUS a documentary in which she’s dragging Ben around on camera? Come on. Jane Fonda was right – this is way too much.
This week's Variety cover story:
Jennifer Lopez’s $20 Million Gamble: Why the Superstar Spent Her Own Money and Defied Skeptics to Tell Her Ben Affleck Love Storyhttps://t.co/f0Fr7YDYDe pic.twitter.com/wKdVz8nWdC
— Variety (@Variety) February 13, 2024
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
