Jennifer Lopez on how she protects her kids from reading gossip—she can’t

If you’ve spent more than two minutes on the internet, you know it can be a vast wasteland of hateful people and keyboard warriors in the comments. Add celebrity status? It’s ten times worse and the photos and gossip just never end. For superstar Jennifer Lopez, she’s been in the spotlight handling this for almost 30 years. But she also has two teenagers and a tween, as well as three step children who are also teens and tweens with husband Ben Affleck. With all of this celebrity status under one roof, how do they protect their children from all the gossip and negative things people in comments and gossip magazines say about their parents?

This was the question Zane Lowe asked Lopez on Apple Music Radio debuting her new series, “This Is Me Now…Radio.” And unfortunately, the short answer was, you really cannot protect them.

Lopez explained, “We can’t because they’re techie kids. Like every other kid, they’re on their phone constantly. They search everything. The minute you say any new word to them, they look at any new name, any new anything.” 

“Any new information they want to know what it is, and they know they can. And so they’re much more informed and it’s totally into the meme culture and think it’s hysterical,” Lopez continued. 

I wonder if they thought the DunKings Super Bowl ad was as hilarious as everyone else thought, and what they think about all the glorious Ben Affleck memes of him “having a moment” with a cigarette or with Dunkin coffee runs.

Thankfully, now that their kids are a bit older, they’re able to have honest conversations with them about what they may or may not see being said about Lopez and Affleck. 

Lopez continued in the interview, “And now that they’re a little bit older, we try not to make it such a big thing in our house because their lives are so much more than the fact that we are their parents in that way, that we’re famous.”

She said most conversations start with, “You know that’s ridiculous…” And her kids respond, “No, we know. We Know.” Lopez doted on her kids, saying they were all incredibly smart, heartful, and brilliant in their own ways. 

Her kids have always grown up in the public eye, and she said in the interview that she felt like they’ve always handled it really well. “And so them becoming who they are in the public eye could be very, very hard for them. And I am sure it is at times even more than they share with us, but they handle it very beautifully,” Lopez said.