14 DAY TRIAL // This week, fans of Jennifer Lopez can get an insight into her personal life with her autobiography True Love, which comes out tomorrow. To promote it, the diva sat down for a heart-to-heart chat with Maria Shriver for The Today Show, a segment of which you will also find embedded below.
This is from part 1 of the interview, which airs tonight, Monday, November 03, 2014. The second part will air tomorrow and will coincide with the release of the book in stores.
In the segment below, Jennifer tries to explain why she’s felt the need to jump from the arms of one man to another and never stay single for longer than a few weeks.
Insecurities, even Jenny from the block has them
Unlike her interviews from a few years back, the Jennifer Lopez of today, the one who saw yet another marriage go down the drain (from Marc Anthony) and is fresh out of a romance with a much younger guy (backup dancer Casper Smart), openly admits that she has a problem staying single.
This has always been her MO: whenever she breaks up from someone, she jumps in the arms of the next man she dates, if he offers her comfort and if they have some chemistry. She’s done it before countless times, so she recognizes the pattern – and for once, she admits to in on camera.
Jennifer believes that such behavior must be linked to her personal insecurities. Sure, she’s a very successful businesswoman and just as successful a pop star and television personality, but as a woman, she’s plagued by insecurities and low self-esteem.
Going from one romance to the next was her way of making sure she was loved, of getting the validation she felt she couldn’t get on her own, Jennifer tells Shriver.
The breakup of Bennifer was the hardest ever
Jennifer has been married 3 times, and right now, she’s very close to swearing that she might never tie the knot again. She’s also been in a series of highly mediated romances, so when she talks of heartbreak, she speaks from a place of experience. A lot of it.
However, the split from actor Ben Affleck (the end of Bennifer, as the couple was called) was one of the hardest in her entire life, Jennifer admits.
“It was probably my first big heartbreak, and to have one of my best friends [Marc Anthony], who I'd known for years, who I actually love and did have chemistry with, come into my life and say, ‘I'm here.’... What you need to know is, nobody can save you or heal you. Only you can do that for you,” Jennifer muses.
Since Bennifer, both she and Ben moved on and found happiness: she temporarily with Marc and Casper, he with current wife Jennifer Garner, with whom he also has 3 adorable children.
Swearing off men – for now
In the same segment, Jennifer says she’s decided to give herself some me-time for a change. Now at the age of 45, she no longer wants a relationship with whatever guy happens to come into her life: she will spend some time single focusing on finding herself and learning to love herself as she is.
When she decides to start dating again, she will not settle for second-best ever again, and will only settle down with a man who will be perfect from the start, no more compromises.
Jennifer and Casper broke up this spring, after reports that he tried to cheat on her with transgender models he picked up online. The cheating never actually happened because the story got out in the press before it was consummated. Officially, Jennifer said the romance just ran its course and the time had come for them to go their separate ways.