In case you wondered whether Jennifer Lopez was raised by a strict mother, let Jenny From The Block tell you herself that her mom Guadalupe Rodriguez tolerated no sort of disrespect in her home. The “Hustlers” actress opened up about the difficult relationship she shared with the 76-year-old as a teenager and admitted that getting beaten wasn’t out of the ordinary for Jennifer and her sisters Leslie and Lynda. Speaking in her “Halftime” documentary on Netflix, the New Yorker recounted, “She did what she had to do to survive, and it made her strong, but it also made her tough. She beat the s*** out of us.”
Jennifer added that her mom had always been a “super complicated woman” and carries a lot of baggage from her younger years, which made it so important for her to raise young women that could stand on their own two feet without depending on a man once they entered their adult lives.
Honestly, I’m out of breath from just watching Jennifer Lopez rehearse her Super Bowl Halftime performance… pic.twitter.com/tdGFvITOJi
— Netflix (@netflix) June 17, 2022
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“I was surrounded by a lot of strong women. My mum is a super complicated woman, and she carries a lot of baggage; she wanted us to be independent and never have to rely on a man,” the mother-of-two shared before admitting that one particular fight had gotten so bad one night, it prompted Jennifer to leave the family home. “My mum was like, “If you’re gonna live in this house, you’re gonna get your education”. We got into a bad fight one night, and I just left.”
Guadalupe, who formerly worked as a salesperson and gym teacher, chimed in and said that butting heads with Jennifer was very common because they disagreed on a lot of things. She acknowledges being “far from the perfect mother” but stressed that all of her daughters were raised with their best interests at heart.
Guadalupe always expected the highest standard in her household, saying it was not so much about being critical but showing that you can always do better. “Jennifer, she gave me the hardest time, to tell you the truth. We butted heads a lot. I was far from the perfect mother. The one thing I can always say, everything I did, I did with their best interest at heart.”
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Jennifer’s Netflix documentary saw her touch on many pivotal moments in her exhilarating career, aside from getting to headline the Super Bowl Halftime Show. Other topics included finding herself back together with Ben Affleck — 20 years after they first began dating — and the heavy criticism that came with being a curvier Latina woman in Hollywood.
“There were many times where I was just like, ‘I think I’m just going to quit’. I had to really figure out who I was. And believe in that and not believe in anything else,” Jenner expressed. “When I started working, the beauty ideal was very thin, blonde, tall, not a lot of curves. I grew up around women with curves so it was nothing I was ever ashamed of.”