Jennifer Lopez Said She Always Felt Like an ‘Outsider’ Among Celebrities

Jennifer Lopez has been a major celebrity for years. She has built successful careers as an actor and singer and has appeared on reality television. While she is one of the bigger stars of the 21st century, Lopez said she has always felt like an outsider when she is around her peers. She shared why she feels this way.

Jennifer Lopez said she didn’t feel like she fit in with other celebrities

While Lopez has been famous and successful for years, she said she has struggled for acceptance. After her arresting role in Hustlers brought her Oscars buzz, many reviews described her as an often-underrated performer who deserves more credit. She has often felt like she isn’t taken as seriously as some of her peers, which may lead to her feeling that she is an outsider.

“I’ve always felt like an outsider, in the fashion world, the music world, the movie world,” she told Vogue in 2022. “I feel like everybody knows each other and all the artists talk, and you go to the Met ball and all the girls are hanging out together, and I’m not in that group. Maybe that’s just insecurity.”

She said this used to sting because she wanted to fit in with other stars. She tried to, but she struggled to find her place.

“It’s not because I’m antisocial or I don’t want to make friends,” she said. “I’ve always been kind of a march-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drum, loner-type person. I’m like, I’ll just stay focused on my thing. I’ve always kind of felt like that. I still do. But I try! It used to be about the idea of validation in other people’s eyes. It really used to be. Because I wanted to be part of the club.”

These days, though, she is less interested in fitting in.

“But I don’t anymore. There’s something bigger that I’m after,” she said. “It’s about touching people’s lives and being touched.”

Is Jennifer Lopez friends with other celebrities?

Though Lopez has struggled with feeling accepted by her Hollywood peers, one of her close friends is another celebrity. One of her close friends is Leah Remini, who she met in 2004. 

“I was friends with Marc Anthony, and then he started dating Jennifer, and he was doing a film,” Remini told Entertainment Tonight. “I went to the premiere and he said, ‘You have to meet Jennifer!’ And he was telling Jennifer, ‘You have to meet Leah and Angelo [Pagan],’ my husband. So, we went to the premiere hoping she was gonna be ugly in real life.”

When they met, Remini told Lopez to her face that she was hoping she wouldn’t be as pretty as she looked on screen.

“I even said that! I said, ‘Goddamnit, why the f*** why are you so f***ing pretty?’ And she laughed,” Remini said. “[Then] I was like, ‘Ugh, I hope she’s dumb, ya know? I was like, ‘She could be dumb!’ I wanted to find something and I didn’t.”

Lopez said this was the moment they “fell in love.”

“It was one of those instant chemistry things, where you just feel like, ‘I love this person. I love being around this person. This person makes me laugh,'” Lopez said. “She’s cool and we also have very similar upbringings. That’s why we work well together.”

In recent years, though, Lopez and Remini reportedly had a falling out over the former’s renewed relationship with Ben Affleck.

She once alienated herself with a brutally honest interview

In 1998, Lopez gave an interview that did little to ingratiate herself with other stars. She was a rising star and answered questions about her fellow actors. She had a surprisingly low opinion of many of her contemporaries, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Clare Danes, and Cameron Diaz. 

“I was never a big fan of hers,” she said of Winona Ryder in an interview with Moviefone. “In Hollywood she’s revered, she gets nominated for Oscars, but I’ve never heard anyone in the public or among my friends say, ‘Oh, I love her.’ She’s cute and talented, though, and I’d like her just for looking like my older sister, Leslie.”

She also laughed at the notion that Salma Hayek competed with her for the titular role in Selena. 

“We’re in two different realms,” she said. “She’s a sexy bombshell and those are the kinds of roles she does. I do all kinds of different things. It makes me laugh when she says she got offered Selena, which was an outright lie. If that’s what she does to get herself publicity, then that’s her thing.”

Lopez maintains that Moviefone took her comments out of context.