Jennifer Lopez refuses to listen to critics who tell her to lose weight.
Jennifer Lopez
The 48-year-old actress and singer - who has 10-year-old twins Emme and Max with her former husband Marc Anthony - has revealed that in the early days of her career she was told to "lose a few pounds" in order to get rid of her curvy figure, but refused to take anyone's advice because she was proud of the way she looked.
She said: "They didn't bother me at all. But I got a lot of flak for it from people in the industry. They'd say, 'You should lose a few pounds,' or 'You should do this or do that.' It finally got to the point that I was like, 'This is who I am. I'm shaped like this.' Everybody I grew up with looked like that, and they were all beautiful to me. I didn't see anything wrong with it. I still don't!"
The 'Shades of Blue' actress - who is in a relationship with Alex Rodriguez - credits her family with helping her stay positive when it comes to her body image.
She added: "My mom and my grandmother were the ones who drilled into me, 'This is how we are, and this is what's beautiful.' My dad loved my mom's body - all the men in our family loved the women's bodies. Being curvy or not being 6 feet tall was never a bad thing; it was actually something that was celebrated. And so, later on, when I brought that in front of the world, I wasn't really trying to send a message. I was just being myself."
Now, the 'On The Floor' hitmaker is working on passing her confident attitude onto her young daughter Emme.
Speaking to InStyle magazine, Jennifer said: "The one thing I really want to teach her is to love and respect herself first and to make sure she commands respect from others. Social media - it's fun and social, but at the end of the day you're living in real time, where you have a core group of friends and family. I try to get her to focus on the things that matter: being a good person, friend, and daughter, being happy with herself, and doing the things she loves."
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