Jennifer Lopez was at the Met Gala the other night – but you know JLo, she is always hustling, so she wasn’t in NYC just because of the party. It was just one stop on a trip that is mostly about work as she’s currently promoting her new movie, The Mother, out next week. 

 

Today JLo was making morning show rounds with appearances on The Today Show and TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. So a lot of what they talked about was her as a mother, about her kids, and what it’s like to be the mom of teens. My favourite part of what she said in interview with Hoda and Jenna is that there’s no one way, and no “right” way to be a mother – everyone is different, every approach is different, no one ever feels like they’re succeeding; in fact, probably the thing that all moms have in common, all parents, maybe, is that they’re failing. 

Of course Ben Affleck comes up. He didn’t travel with her to New York as he’s probably back in LA with the kids but she’s asked about their relationship, and the best part of that, to me, is when Hoda and Jenna tell her that when they talked to Ben recently about what JLo would change about him, he said that she would want him to not be so longwinded, LOL forever. This is what I’ve been saying! The man cannot stop talking! He can talk forever! 

 

JLo leans into the comedy of it briefly but of course she comes back around to fangirl and we know this too – she is his biggest fan, the first word she uses to describe him is “writer”, and that he has a way with words. So if you were wondering about Ben’s absence at the Met Gala… there’s nothing here, just scheduling. 

 

Because this is JLo though, of course it’s a multitask. She’s not only here to sell the movie but the album comes up: This is Me… Now. I was just asking last week about the release date. She tells Hoda on TODAY that it’ll be late summer/early fall, so it doesn’t sound yet like she’s ready to put a date on it but she does confirm that there will be no guest features, it’s just her singing about finding love again with Ben. And then her mother chimes in to say that it’s like nothing we’ve ever heard before from JLo. 

This might be where Jennifer Lopez is the most relatable. Because her sister, Lynda, and her mother, Lupe, are there with her in the studio. And they cut away to Lupe at one point, so Lupe has her say, and when the camera moves back to JLo… she almost rolls her eyes. She’s a pro, so it doesn’t quite get to that point, but it was coming. 

 

And we’ve all been there, where somehow your ma just finds her way into your business, and ends up telling the world that she always knew that you and the love of your life would get back together (this is the gossip bomb Lupe decided to drop this morning) and you are ready to shut it down. Not even JLo is immune. 

Attached – JLo’s second Met Gala outfit for the afterparty that we didn’t post yesterday and shots from outside the studios in NYC today.