View this post on Instagram

Jennifer Lopez is at the top of her game – and she knows it. After working her famous booty off for nearly 30 years, she’s not afraid to celebrate her success. She covers our December issue in @MaisonValentino couture. Read her full interview at the link in bio! I Photographed by @Anthony.Maule; Styled by @JuliePelipas

A post shared by instylemagazine (@instylemagazine) on Oct 31, 2018 at 5:00am PDT

Jennifer Lopez covers the December issue of InStyle to promote Second Act, the cute-looking comedy where a simple outer-borough girl ends up pretending to have an Ivy League education and she ends up in a high-powered Manhattan job. It’s like a Cinderella story, only it’s about a woman’s career. In this interview, Jennifer is sort of reflective of that other path, the road she would have taken if she had never left the Bronx and become a global superstar. She’s also feeling reflective because she turns 50 years old in the next year. Which is a big deal. You can read the full InStyle piece here, and here are some highlights:

The road not taken: “If I didn’t have certain ambitions, I might have gotten married after high school and had kids and decided to get a job at a bank in Castle Hill, like my aunt did. It’s just that I had dreams and ideas that were different.”

Time’s Up: “It has taken time,but I think we’re in a very powerful moment where women are going, ‘Wait a minute. We’re not afraid to say what we deserve.’”

The importance of being a multi-hyphenate: “I don’t understand why you can’t be an actress and a singer and dancer as well. Like, that’s how this whole business started. Entertainment! And why can’t you be funny and also be a dramatic actress? OK, some people can’t do both. But if they can, let them!”

She thinks the Bennifer days were worse than the tabloid media today: “It was actually worse then. It was just crazy. Now at least I can show you who I am a little bit. Back then you just believed anything you read on the cover of a tabloid. Many times it wasn’t true, or it was like a third of the truth.” She acknowledges that young actors now face a whole new set of selfie-driven anxieties, “but they didn’t live through the tabloid era. Now I sound like my mom. ‘I used to walk uphill to school, before there were cars!’?”

Her relationship with A-Rod: “When we met, we’d both already done a lot of work on ourselves. Everybody has flaws, and the people I want in my life are the people who recognize that and are willing to work on those flaws. It’s super-important: someone who’s willing to look at themselves and say, ‘OK, I’m not great here’ or ‘I could do better there.’?”

Whether she’s feeling her age: Failing memory, flagging energy? Nope and nope. But she does throw me a few bones. Lopez has noticed that she’s been squinting at her phone lately, so she might need reading glasses soon. The middle of her back hurts occasionally. And she’s introduced weight training to her fitness routine after realizing that she now loses muscle whenever she dances too much. But mostly, she credits her looks to the wholesome habits she’s maintained throughout adulthood: no caffeine, no alcohol, lots of sleep. “I’ve taken care of myself, and now it shows,” she says.

She’s still hood: “It’s what I still often wear to this day, the big hoops and, you know, gold jewelry. I always like to mix the glam with a bit of the hood.”

[From InStyle]

I think she sounds fine here? She’s such a pop culture icon, and yet… I feel like there is one small part of her which is “down to earth,” at least more down to earth than many iconic performers/actors. And it is legit crazy that she’s in such incredible shape right now – you would have thought that the wheels would have started to come off in her early or mid 40s, like the rest of us peasants. But no. The worst thing to happen to her is that she might need reading glasses. Crazy.

As for what she says about the tabloid landscape being different and worse than circa 2003 than it is now…. I sort of understand her point. I also think that back then, the gossip landscape was just more centralized, and those were the last days of actual big, iconic celebrities. Now everyone is equally famous online and all of that.

Cover courtesy of InStyle, additional photos courtesy of WENN.