If anything, Lopez would characterize herself “more of a love addict or a workaholic than everything else.”
Jennifer Lopez is a romantic, sure, but she’s not hopeless with it. And definitely not a sex addict. A love addict? Now we’re talking.
That’s the word according to Lopez. The pop veteran stopped by Carrie & Tommy’s drive-time Australian radio station drive show on the Hit Network, for an exploration of her two-part This Is Me…Now project — an album and an Amazon original film, This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, both set for release this Friday, Feb. 16.
Directed by Dave Meyers (Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift), This Is Me…Now: A Love Story is said to showcase “her journey to love through her own eyes.” For her Australian radio spot, Lopez was asked about the moment in the official trailer, when her pals stage an intervention, telling the “If You Had My Love” singer that she just might be a sex addict.
“No, no,” she says with a laugh. “People can think all kinds of things when they’re seeing you from the outside, thinking they know what your life is, and you’re like ‘well that’s actually the opposite of the truth’, but it was nice to toy around with all of those ideas.”
If anything, she would characterize herself “more of a love addict or a workaholic than everything else.”
Lopez co-wrote the film, described in a statement as a “narrative-driven cinematic odyssey, steeped in mythological storytelling and personal healing.”
A decade has passed since Lopez’s last studio album, 2014’s A.K.A., which peaked at No. 8, one of her eight top 10s on the Billboard 200 chart.
Time away from creating music has been restorative. “I feel like this is the best album that I’ve ever made,” she tells Carrie & Tommy. “The most honest and true – it took a long time for me as a musical artist to get there. I’m really happy and proud of this in a way that I don’t think I ever have been before.”
Her ninth studio album, This Is Me…Now completes a concept, an “examination of that journey” from the release of This Is Me.. Then back in 2002 when she was dating Ben Affleck, to her subsequent marriage to the Batman star, and “wanting to share it with the world” through the lens of the project, she continues. “They’ve followed me on that journey and watched me make mistakes and go in and out of relationships and wondered what was going on.”
Lopez and Affleck split in 2004, reunited in 2021 and finally tied the knot in a surprise Las Vegas wedding in July 2022 – 20 years after that album release. The rest has been like, well, a romantic film.
“I got to the point in my life where I felt like I have some answers about this, and actually, true love does exist, and some things are forever,” she enthuses. “Don’t give up hope.”
The new album features a sequel to a track from the first This Is Me album, “Dear Ben Pt. II,” plus the previously released, dance-y single “Can’t Get Enough.”
Stream the interview here.
