Jennifer Lopez revealed she was “about to give up on it all” after her 2014 divorce from Marc Anthony.
While speaking onstage during her Up All Night Las Vegas residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on Friday, March 6, the “On the Floor” singer, 56, opened up about how difficult the months following her split from her third husband were.
“I was really about to give up on it all,” Lopez told the crowd, as seen in videos circulating on social media. “I mean, I was a single mom with two 3-year-old twins.”
Lopez, who shares 18-year-old twins Max and Emme with Anthony, 57, said the period was “actually a really tough time.”
However, during that challenging moment in her life, the Kiss of the Spider Woman star said she received meaningful advice from one of her mentors, the late author Louise Hay — guidance she says she still holds onto today.
“She said to me, ‘Jennifer, you’re a dancer, right?’ ” Lopez recalled. “I said, ‘Yes, I am.’ And she said, ‘When you’re learning a dance and you get the steps wrong, what do you do?’ I said, ‘I just keep going until I get the steps right.’ And she said, ‘That’s right Jennifer. Always keep dancing.’ ”
“And I wish the same for each and every one of you, that no matter what life throws at you, that you dance and you dance and you dance,” she added while pointing toward the crowd. “Again and again and again.”
Lopez shared a similar message during the second night of her Up All Night residency in December, saying she “really started getting good at [dancing]” after her third divorce, a time when she described her life as “a mess.”
Despite the challenges that followed her split from Marc Anthony, Lopez told Sunday Today host Willie Geist in December 2018 that Anthony “really helped me with my confidence” during their seven-year marriage.
“While I was married to Marc, he really helped me build my confidence, and he recognized where I struggled,” she said at the time, recalling how he would constantly tell her, “You’re a great singer. Don’t ever let anybody tell you you’re not a great singer.”
“I respected him so much because I consider him one of the best singers of all time,” she added.
Years after their divorce, Lopez collaborated with Anthony on her Spanish-language album Por Primera Vez. She later shared on Spotify’s ¡Viva Latino! podcast in November 2017 that working together helped mend parts of their relationship that had been damaged by their marriage and divorce, allowing them to rebuild a friendship.
“Because when we first started working together, it’s how we met… we met working,” she explained. “And so we remembered that, like, oh right, we connect on this level of music.”
