The actress made a sarcastic remark during her interview on 'Today.'
Jennifer Lopez's latest interview with Hoda Kotb included both women's personal lives coming up in conversation. The 52-year-old actress appeared on Thursday's episode of the Today show to promote her new flick, Marry Me, and the questions eventually turned to her rekindled romance with Ben Affleck. In turn, Lopez mentioned Kotb's recent split from Joel Schiffman.
At first, Kotb and Savannah Guthrie only alluded to Lopez and Affleck's relationship in the context of the movie, in which Lopez plays a pop star who struggles with her personal life being in the spotlight but ultimately decides to give love another chance. Lopez and Affleck had a very public breakup in 2004, before getting back together last year following her highly publicized split from Alex Rodriguez.
"This movie was very meta," Lopez admitted. "... I know what it feels like to go home and have them like making jokes about you on TV... It's hard. You go home sometimes and you cry when it was a big heartbreak or something happened and it was bad, and it's hard to deal with."
"People, I don't think they get to see that as much," she continued. "You have to put your best foot forward. You have to come out here. You have to do the smile. You have to do the thing. That's part of your job, but there's a person there, and it was nice to kind of let that side out because I never get to do that really."
Lopez went on to express the importance of following your heart, despite public perception. Guthrie chimed in, "I feel like we're talking around it... Obviously there are a lot of parallels and you're back together with Ben Affleck. A lot of people were rooting for that relationship back then."
Lopez didn't agree with that assessment, but Kotb brought up Matt Damon as one supporter, citing his 2021 interview on the morning show in which she asked him about his pal's rekindled romance.
"You guys really gave him a hard time," Lopez said of when Damon was on the show. "I felt so bad for him. I was like, 'Oh my God.'"
The Today anchors bypassed Lopez's comment, and Guthrie pushed on with her thought.
"I know you don't necessarily want to spill your guts about something that is personal and belongs to you," Guthrie said, "but... I think so many people can relate to the one who got away or the one you always wondered about. How did you find each other again?"
"We can talk about that backstage if you really want to know," Lopez answered. "I think what we learned from the last time is that love, when you are lucky enough to find it, is so sacred and special and you have to hold a little bit of that privately, and that's what we've learned. But we're very happy, if that's what you're wondering about."
Eventually, Kotb changed the subject by complimenting Lopez on her recent magazine cover. When Kotb held up the magazine in question, the corner of it featured a photo of her and a headline about her and Schiffman's split.
"Let me just block out this corner," Kotb quipped as she placed her hand over the pic of herself.
"Why are you trying to block out the corner?" Lopez questioned, before jumping up and grabbing the magazine out of Kotb's hands. "You don't want to talk about your personal stuff? Is that what it is, Hoda?"
The three women laughed at the exchange, and Kotb gave Lopez a high-five, telling her, "Touché."
"They call that mutually assured destruction," Guthrie quipped.
"That was funny," Lopez said of the situation, with Kotb agreeing, "You're funny."
The women then tossed things over to Al Roker who remarked, "Look at the time. Wow. Didn't see that coming. Anyway..."
Kotb did address her and Schiffman's split on Monday's episode of the morning show, admitting, "This is weird and awkward. I really was struggling with this. I was like, 'What do I say, how do I say it?'"
"But I feel like often we share the joyous pieces of our life... and then the difficult part sometimes you want to forget about. You want to erase them, you don't want to share them because that's not part of a pretty picture," she said. "But I think a lot of women know what this feels like in this moment, to be changing course in life. And I feel really brave in this moment, I really do."
As for Lopez, she did previously open up about her personal life during a November appearance on the Today show, revealing that she would consider getting married again.
"I don't know, yeah, I guess. You know me, I'm a romantic. I always have been. I've been married a few times. Yeah, I still believe in happily ever after, for sure, 100 percent," she said. "... I feel like I'm a human being just like everybody else. I've had my ups and downs. I've made mistakes. I'm really proud of where I've come to in my life, of who I am as a person, as a mom, and as an actor, as an artist."
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