Jennifer Lopez is getting real about aging as a woman in Hollywood and how the industry has grown to appreciate actresses of all ages.
“It has changed a lot, and I think it’s appropriate,” she told Elle in an interview published on Thursday, November 30. “As you get older and you have more experience, you become a richer human being and you have more to offer. The idea of, ‘There’s nothing really valuable about watching a woman over 30’ is so ridiculous, it’s the opposite of right. It just makes me laugh.”
Lopez continued, “People have realized that women just get sexier as they get older. They get more learned and more rich with character. All of that is very beautiful and attractive, and not just physically, but on the inside, the beauty that you gain as you get older, the wisdom you gain.”
The multitalented star is as busy as ever at age 54, telling the outlet that she sees herself continuing to work for “as long as” she wants to. “I don’t know what that age is,” she said. “It might be 70, it might be 80, it might be 90, I don’t know. But I know that it’s there for me if I want it and I want to create it.”
Throughout her career, Lopez has never succumbed to the limits others have placed on her. “That has always been the mindset that I’ve had: to never let anybody put me in a box because of where I was born, where I’m from, what age I am, anything like that,” she explained. “Those boundaries don’t exist for me.”
Last month, Lopez announced that her ninth studio album, This Is Me … Now, will be released on February 16, 2024. The album’s first single, “Can’t Get Enough,” will debut one month earlier. This Is Me … Now marks J. Lo’s first full-length solo album in almost a decade since 2014’s A.K.A.
Along with new music, Lopez revealed that a “fantastical and highly visual” film about her life with Ben Affleck will arrive on Prime Video next year to coincide with the album’s release. Lopez and Affleck, 51, reconnected in 2021 after ending their engagement nearly 20 years earlier in 2004. They tied the knot in Las Vegas in July 2022 before holding a more formal wedding the following month.
When Lopez initially announced her new record in November 2022, fans noticed a callback to her 2002 album, This Is Me … Then, which was dedicated to Affleck. Her forthcoming album will include a song titled “Dear Ben pt. II, “taking after the 2002 hit “Dear Ben.”
