Jennifer Lopez Once Shared She Became Very Selfish After She Got Pregnant

Jennifer Lopez shares two kids with her ex-husband, Marc Anthony. But one of the side effects of her pregnancy at the time was being unabashedly selfish toward her lover.

Jennifer Lopez was selfish for the first time ever during pregnancy

Lopez gave birth to twins in 2008, which was surprising as she was only expecting one child. At one point, Lopez didn’t expect she’d ever get pregnant at all.

“I didn’t have kids until later, and I almost thought that it wasn’t going to happen for me,” she once told E! News. “I’m very aware that I was blessed with that. I don’t take it for granted for one day.”

But after getting together with her ex-husband, Marc Anthony, Lopez predicted she’d eventually become pregnant. It became more of a matter of when than if.

“We knew nothing was wrong with either one of us. I had been checked, and he had kids already,” she once told Elle (via People). “I knew [that] something’s not ready here, in my head or in my life, and when it is, I know it’s going to happen.”

After she finally did become pregnant, however, Lopez noticed a more demanding side of her personality took over. After finishing a concert tour, she laid out new ground rules for Anthony to follow.

“I said, ‘I did the superwoman thing, I finished the tour. Now, I need you to take care of me,’” she said.

“‘I love doing things for you; if I’m not cooking, then I’m picking out a shirt. But this is the first time in my life where I’m just going to be a little bit selfish,’” she recalled saying to Anthony. “‘I don t know if I’m going to have kids again, so I want it to be a beautiful experience. I don’t want to have any drama. I want to just be smiling every day.’”

What it took for Jennifer Lopez to get back in shape after having kids

Lopez’s pregnancy had an expected but dramatic effect on her figure that she briefly wondered would last forever.

“Then when I got pregnant, I remember watching my back, belly and butt grow thinking, ‘I will never be the same again,’” she once told The Telegraph.

After giving birth, however, she started appreciating her new physical features before returning to her previous weight.

“Then I remember right after the twins were born having that weird jiggly belly — and kind of loving that, too. Because I earned that jiggy belly. Then came trying to get my body back into shape and how long that took. A whole year,” she said.

Lopez also felt it was unrealistic to expect celebrities to revert back to their regular weight too quickly after giving birth. According to Lopez, most of them didn’t.

“Sure, you can dress nicely after a couple of months, and people will say, ‘Oh, look how amazing they look in a picture taken from a good angle. But the truth is it takes your body time to go back, and I think these days women are too hard on themselves with that,” she said. “Nobody bounces back straight away. You don’t know what kind of Spanx these women are wearing under their tight clothes and what other tricks are going on.”

How pregnancy changed the way Jennifer Lopez saw herself

Lopez admitted that even she doesn’t feel confident in her looks all the time. But it might’ve been easier to brush aside her off days, thanks to her kids.

“I think I’m like every woman. I have days when I think I look great and days when I think I look like [crap]. But when you have kids, it’s just about pressing on, no matter how you feel,” Lopez said.

Lopez confided that she was happier than ever after having children. And to her, there was no other accomplishment that compared to the joys of motherhood.

“It’s also the scariest thing,” she said about being a parent. “So terrifying and daunting. But it brings me so much joy. I think about being a performer and having all these amazing moments on stage and movie sets. Still nothing matches the joy I get coming off stage and having my kids waiting there in the wings. That’s when my two worlds collide, and I feel whole.”

Her kids also changed the way Lopez looked at the concept of love.

“[It made me] reexamine what love is,” she added. “I think that was why there were so many changes in my life afterward. You think, ‘Oh, Ok. This is love. So what is this?’”