I know I knew her before this, but my most vivid J.Lo imprint on my life is when a very cool girl freshman year decided to have a butt measuring contest in the hallway. And this was the year 2000. So this is when Abercrombie Jeans were supposed to stay up by hanging on those little hit bones. You weren't supposed to have a butt. So whoever was going to have the biggest butt was going to lose. And I lost.
And then like an angel on a float covered in fairy dust, J.Lo entered pop culture and having a butt and having curves. And suddenly we could wear juicy sweatpants, which are elastic. And I just remember her as a savior to body image. You know, it's so funny because that's been so normalized like vis-a-vis the Kardashians. But it was very disruptive at the time. Extremely she made the Kardashians.
And now it's funny because with all of her, you know, all the work she has done, but she sells a skincare line, but then she says it's olive oil. And it's like obviously not olive oil. She's doing perhaps a disservice to all of our body images. But in the year 2000, 2001, 2002, she was the first woman with curves that I knew of as a teenager who was treated as just as hot as Kate Moss, heroin cheek. This is the Culture Study Podcast and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. And I'm Chelsea De Montez.
I am the author of the memoir I shouldn't be telling you this. And I host the podcast Glamrs Trash where we read female celebrity memoirs. It's so good. I don't even like celebrity memoirs except for one we can talk about this later, but I do need to know which one. Well, I need both. Well, I used to study classic Hollywood like in my academic career. And a lot of those memoirs are total just like so boring.
But Gloria Swanson wrote a memoir that was released at the end of her life, which is always good, right? It's like kind of like Marbra. And it was called Swanson on Swanson. And it's I've heard of this one. I think it's like 700 pages. Oh, and I'm so good. So sorry because you're now my podcast guest for that episode and you booked yourself whether you wanted to or not. And both can't wait to discuss. And I'm like, who's Gloria Swanson? And I'm like, let me tell you.
I mean, some of the old ones that are good, people need to know who they are. I mean, even Lonnie Anderson, who is what the 70s are 80s, people don't know who she is anymore. But that memoir is so good. Didn't you do one on Delta Burke? I did. So I actually covered Delta Burke's memoir. It was one of the first episodes I did on my podcast in 2020 because I just love her so much. And then I just got to interview her about her memoir. And it was like her first interview in 20 years. What?
Yeah. Isn't that wild? She was so viciously mistreated by the press. She said, you know, I don't think I need to do any interviews for you, file monsters. And then when I hired PR for my book, she said, what do you want to do? Like, you know, what kind of things do you want to do? And I said, I want to send a letter to Delta Burke. And she was like, okay, I don't think you know how PR works because we need to. What are you talking about? I was like, just, do you, I feel like you know people.
And you get her a letter from me because she was the very first celebrity memoir I ever read. And then I sent her a letter and then she came on the podcast. And I mean, the old gems of books have so much tea in them. It's unbelievable. Like the people who went there in an era when, you know, authenticity wasn't as hot and cool as it is now. They went there just out for blood. I love it. This is actually a great segue to talking about your memoir. How did celebrity memoirs inform yours?
You're a celebrity, right? Like, you know, so how do you think about it? So not to everyone who just heard my name, they went, no, she's not. No, but it did, they did heavily influence in part because celebrity memoirs have always been my favorite book genre. And that is what happens when your nearest bookstore growing up is a Walmart. Yeah. And so I also grew up in small towns and a weekly people celebrity memoirs. Obviously, you know, I had a library card.
I read a lot, but I wanted to meet in this industry. So I always wanted to know what these women who had succeeded in this industry had to say. And on top of that, the good celebrity memoirs have been talking about abortion and traumatic relationships and abuse and men trying to come onto you when you're at work and how do you still get the role in all these things that like really were not okay to talk about. And they've been in these books this whole time.
And yet we've branded them as trash literature. And so I genuinely love the books. Listen, some of them very bad. I still enjoy reading them, but the good ones are good. And yeah, so I just have always loved the art of memoir. And I don't think I would have gotten the chance to write my own memoir, which I've always wanted to do unless I started a podcast where I cover these memoirs, which, you know, I started it in 2020. So I think we've we've covered at least 150 memoirs at this point.
And that is what really helped me build the community that led to someone emailing me saying, you should write a book. And I said, yeah, I've always wanted to do that. Please, anything. What? You know, reading all of these memoirs and talking about them, what interests you the most about the ways that celebrities learn to narrativize their own lives? Well, I think it's definitely gendered at least for me.
And I wonder if you'll agree, which is that women have never been able to tell their own story, especially the more famous they get. And so our perception of these women have always been written by the male lead media. And especially if we're talking about, you know, JLo in the early 2000s, just the articles written about her ass. It's just unbelievable things said. And so when a woman decides to tell her own story, to me, it's incredibly healing. And it's the way I want to do my trauma work.
Like I want to fix my body image by reading Jessica Simpson's memoir, talking about how when we called her fat, she was a size four. And then I want to look up those photos. And now I've done 10 years of therapy. That's how I want to do it. It's fun. It's gossipy. I'm going to learn about John Mayer, showering in her parents house. Like that's how I want to. That's how I want to grow as a person personally. It's more fun. And so I actually, I'm not even a real fan of biography.
I really like memoir. I want to know your version of it. Right. Well, and I also, a very, like, previous lifetime, I was approached to potentially audition to Ghost Right, one of the Jonas Brothers memoirs. What does a ghost writing audition look like? Oh, it's more like, okay, so let's have a conversation about how you would approach this kind of thing. I didn't talk. Like I didn't get past the point of like having a conversation with the agent. I see. Yes, I see.
And I've never actually admitted this because you're supposed to be so harsh about it. But I figure, enough time is enough. It's a new era. That's fine. And that process, too, is so fascinating to me that essentially you have someone who you tell a lot of stories to. And then that person has to figure out, okay, how do I turn that into a story? Right? And the good ghost writers can make your book incredible. And the bad ones will just destroy you. Todd Gold, you know who you are.
I'm out for you. I need them to know. We are enemies. He doesn't care about me. He wrote Drew Barrymore's book when she was 14 and then rehab. And yeah, and it's so interesting to you because haven't you felt like classically people have looked down on ghost writers? They're like, well, if you used a ghost writer, it's not a real book.
And all I can say about celebrity memoirs is please use a ghost writer and pick a good one because the people who don't, you know, you can't just learn how to write a book the next day. It's hard stuff. I love the ones that use good ghost writers. It makes the best stories. Okay. So back to JLo. I grew up in a small town in Idaho and my primary mode of access to pop culture was through a subscription to Entertainment Weekly.
Yes. And so I like, I knew a lot about things that were happening without necessarily like ever watching them. So I knew a lot about Selena before the movie came out. Yeah. It's like that's one of my memories of that and of the song from soundtrack, Dreaming of You, that was so big. But JLo didn't sing it. Selena sings it. And then also, I was very important. I also was not allowed to watch in living color.
The sketch show because yeah, like basically everything on Fox, I think my mom thought was rude. So like the Simpsons was rude, married with short and was rude. But she's not wrong. They are rude. So I would sneak shows on Fox, including in living color. And yesterday I was watching, because I knew she was a fly girl. And I was like, I saw her before I saw her. Like I knew her before I knew her, which is really interesting.
Like that was my, you know, in living colors so much less polished than SNL or than like any of the music videos that I was watching, sneaking as well on MTV at that same time. Oh yeah. And an unpolished version of JLo. And I think I love reading memoirs for so many reasons, but also you start to connect different tidbits from different books and Rosie Perez, who was the, you know, the dance captain and boss of the fly girls wrote an entire section about JLo and what she was like.
And that was kind of JLo's like first big break. And they almost fought each other in the street. Yeah. That was the beef. Yeah. So when we came up with the idea to do a JLo episode, I asked for host suggestions. This is on Instagram. I cannot tell you. I think I received a hundred recommendations for you. What? I was wondering how I got here. That's amazing. So thank you everyone.
And I know that you've done, like I was wondering what are your TikToks the other day, where you're looking at the cups from, from the wedding. So I know that there is some content, but what makes you an aficionado of JLo? Jennifer Lopez. Well, I hate to ask this, but have you read JLo's memoir? And I'm going to use quotes when I say, I have not, but I know you have. So her memoir is one of the most frustrating books of all time because all you want is JLo.
And she wrote it I think in 2014 and like I was just so excited for that book. And it is mostly photos could have been a slim magazine with the amount of story. And it's one of those like people commemorative magazines. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I say on my podcast, you cannot escape your book. Some piece of you always ends up in the book, even when it's just promotional materials. But if there's one person who comes close to not being in her book, it's JLo. She really tries to not be in there.
And so I've always loved to her, always wanted to know about her, her, her book is a huge disappointment, but it's still one of the first episodes I covered. Because I remember reading it backstage. And then I think I became a Jennifer Lopez expert sincerely when I looked at photos of her wedding and began posting it. And this is because I got married myself and it ruined my personality. And now my free new page has wedding stuff all over it still. It was two years ago.
And so I was kind of already, I'd been through the wedding game of making all those decisions recently. And her wedding photos come up. And all I could think is this is the, she's the queen of weddings. It's her fifth. She knows how to plan a wedding. And she's put on the dress for all of us. She's done it. She's done all of it. And she has this like, I'm cool. I'm Jenny from the block of the Bronx, Maggie Pants, Jawroll, Duets. Like she's cool, right?
And then her wedding to the absolute love of her life, Ben Affleck is one of the most basic and ugliest things you've ever seen. And I couldn't wrap my head around it. I was, how are these live laugh love signs there? How are Christmas tree garlands wrapped in pearls next to this Georgia foliage, which is a totally different climate. And the wedding dress choice itself, it was like dressing to be different versus dressing to be yourself. And then I found these cups that she had at her wedding.
And then those cups of ruin my life. And I, that's the six-talkie watch. And I felt I entered a space where I understood her taste for the first time. Yes. And that has changed how I look at her in her career. I think that the documentary does something similar. And I think that it's like part of it is that she has aged into it and she has complete freedom. So that's part of it.
But before we get too deep into this, I think we should start with the questions because this will give us an opportunity to talk about all of these things. I was somewhat surprised by how many of the questions we received were kind of dogging on her because I really like her. Like I really like her. She's a likable celebrity. And it's absolutely. She's our romcom queen.
You can't start in that many romcoms without being wildly likable because that's what they require of romcom leaves, the most likable woman on earth. And like the whole narrative of what's happened with Ben Affleck like, oh my gosh, like I was absolutely riveted. But I think that since the documentary and the movie, which like no one has seen the movie, but the documentary. Kind of different. There's been a little bit of a shift. So let's get to the questions.
This is this first one is from Stephanie. It feels like a lot of recent criticism of JLo is rooted in sexism and classism, but also like people haven't been paying attention to who she is and what she's been doing for the past 30 years. Why does being with Ben change the way that people look at her? Okay. So I think we have to remember all of the discourse around the first iteration of Ben Affleck. What do you remember from that time in the early 2000s? I remember he kissed her butt. Oh my god.
Beautiful slow kiss. I remember that to me that reaction was actually a very racist and sexist reaction of, you know, he had been with Gwyneth Paltrow and to see him with JLo kind of broke her mind. I think the only thing that made it make sense is a meme I saw, which was imagine both of their most recent X's dating, which would have been P, Diddy and Gwyneth Paltrow. And then you sort of are like, okay, I see how this is odd to people.
And I remember that they called up their wedding three days, three days before they were to walk down the aisle, which means those doves were paid for. You know? Now there's some Julia Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland Shit, which is knowledge for any of the real ones who knew all about like early 90s gossip like me. But there was just like this over exposure, right? And when we talk about over exposure, oftentimes like it's a way of saying that like they're too much, they're too trashy in some way.
Like they coveted or sought attention in a way that was unbecoming. And I do think that there are often class connotations with that understanding. Like she wanted fame too much. And she needed to recede from the spotlight. And like, and now it seems like that really was the cause of the demise of their relationship. Like we kind of understood that at the time, but it wasn't fully acknowledged.
It's interesting because had she just shown up and been like, I'd like a job and I'd like to be an actress, people would have said, you're being too much. You want too much. You're trying to be famous. You're in diva bitch. Get out of here. Like that no question. What's fascinating about Jalow is that she really did want fame and does and currently can't let it go. She's in a phase of life where she could just be with Ben, but she's got to make her movie about it.
And that's always been the thing about her, which is that and Rosie Perez stated it. Everyone who's known her says she goes after what she wants and she won't let go and she'll push for it. So I think people were reacting in an ignorant way and also picking up something a little true. And I mean, the word we have for that is that she is incredibly ambitious. Yeah. Worst thing a woman can be. I think sometimes, you know, Beyonce is also incredibly ambitious.
But there is a little bit of a difference in talent. And I don't say that in a mean way, right? Like I think that Jalow is probably just as good of a dancer as Beyonce. I think Jalow is an incredible dancer. Yes. I mean, I would actually, I would put her dancing as her top top. Yes. Same. Like I was just melody because she's a wee baby who was a child in 2000. She like didn't know the way that Jalow came to fame, right? Which was that she was a dancer first.
Yeah. And then gets cast in Selena and becomes more of a movie star and then becomes really a singer, right? Like it's not until 99, right? Is the first album, I think? Yeah. And it's really Tommy Matolla trying to ruin Maria Carrie's life. That makes Jalow's career. I mean, that's just, yeah, tell me more about this. Tell me more about this. So you can read multiple sources, but like I said, my favorite would be Maria Carrie's memoir, where she writes chapters about this.
And you know, Maria Carrie famously gives the quotes, I don't know her, that's how much she hates Jalow. And it's a tough female feud because it really is Tommy Matolla's fault. Yes. And now these two women hate each other. But Maria Carrie divorces Tommy. She married him when she was 18. He was 20 years her senior. It was so horrible existence. She gets free. I even knew that as a teen, right? Oh, yeah.
So she finally gets free and he does what every, every powerful man does that when a woman divorces him, he says, let's find ways to ruin her. I have to. And he finds the way he's going to do this is via Jalow. And he steals songs that Maria Carrie was going to use in glitter and gives them to Jalow. When Maria Carrie is doing a duet with Jalow rule, he finds a producer and says, do it, get a Jalow rule, do it with Jalow and get it out before the Maria Carrie one. And that was ain't that funny.
I think it might have been, I'm real. Oh, I'm real. Yeah. And he is building Jalow piece by piece as a machine to drive Maria Carrie crazy. And it works. And I think what's on the table is how much did Jalow know? How much was she a participant in this? And it doesn't seem to matter to Maria because she'll just hate her forever. And Tommy always told Maria, you'll never survive without me. You'll never survive without me. And then her first project, glitter, totally bombs.
So the thing that the abuse of man said to her came true. You can't do it without me. And then Jalow rises as Maria Carrie has her breakdown. And Jalow rises, she rises and rises and rises. And then we get like jiggly, right? That she leans. That like essentially like that's a turning point in her start. So overexposure, break up with then recedes and still has like, you know, is still in the public consciousness. She marries Mark Antony. She has twins.
I think she was just kind of hanging out there as like, oh, we know who Jalow is and tell somewhat recently. And that has reignited some of these discourses around this, like her original rise to fame. And like the idea that she doesn't sing, right? Like, well, that one, yeah. So we have to talk about the idea that she can't sing. So, you know, with the time turning, there are now singers on TikTok saying, I am the Ginny from the block singer. And singing it.
And, you know, it was Sean Zeebeen on the tracks, the original tracks. And, you know, it's interesting because I think five years ago, I tweeted some joke. I wish I could remember it. But it's something like, I love that Jalow is a singer because it means I'm a singer. We're all singers. And I was run off the internet for a hot second. People were like, how dare you? And now the perception is totally flipped. And I think that became clear when she sang at the inauguration. Do you remember this?
Yeah. And this is the key about Jalow. To know, to know you can hear, you know your own voice. And you're going to sing live at the inauguration. And you cannot sing from C2, shiny and C. So you're going to lower the key. That note. We're not going to hit that note. So you got to lower the key of that song. You're not even going to choose a different song. That wasn't even the whole song you were singing. You were singing this land, you're just sick with that one.
And, but this dog-ed persistence she has that made her so successful in the beginning, made her one of the first few Latinas stars to break through when star in romcoms is now I feel her undoing. She's got to do the therapy thing we all do where you realize that one quality you had as a kid that helped you survive is now hurting you. Yes. No, and I think you see this in the documentary too. Like, she just wants it so bad and you can tell that it's torturing her.
Like she makes her really unhappy that she can't succeed with this movie, right, that she wants to do the same thing. I love that you keep calling it a movie. You know, Twitter called it a minute made lemonade. And I've never been able to get that out of my head. I haven't seen it. I haven't only seen clips from it. You haven't seen it. No, but the way that it, I've seen clips from it.
I couldn't bring myself to watch it because I knew from the way that she taught, like all of these characters who are playing like the signs, right, like all of the shots that they do of the wedding. I had a watch party for its debut. The moment it was streaming a veil, I had 20 people in my living room. We drank a low-leg and we watched. What's your take on it? So I say this with love because I've done it.
Now the difference between me and JLo is that mine's still private on Vimeo and hers was made for $20 million dollars and she did the docu-series of it. But it's very your first film. It's very your college collage. And I love in the documentary when Ben is trying to stop her from making certain decisions. But it is such, it is just a collage of ideas and she's also someone who will not, she wants to play in the realm of authenticity but also will not let herself be herself. Right, right, right.
There's no, she doesn't know what that there there is. She thinks that having herself as a kid is somehow doing some real work, right? Yes, yes. But this goes back to the tasting thing with her. Where I think JLo breaks our brains because she's cool, she's artsy, she's doing this film and she's like running around with it, but it's like the thesis of the film is astrology is real and good and is the reason I've been divorced. The thesis is I was with the wrong astrological sign.
JLo is, her name, she's given Trishelin at the Cherrywood Mall in Minnesota, picking at a fun pillow that says another day, another sleigh. That is JLo. It's her medazzled Starbucks cup but we refuse to mesh the two together of her taste and what we think she is. Right, right. She's not like, you know, like Beyonce's like weaving together all of these, like, like Beyonce has done the reading.
Like Beyonce has taken a graduate class in like thinking through some of these ideas about like what is genre, genre is unstable, what is country music, what are all the roots of country music? How can I mean these together? How can I mean these together? Right. I don't think that this means that JLo is a worse person. She's just a different person. It's taste. It tastes if someone, you know, it really is her taste. You can see it in the wedding decor. You can see it in the Starbucks cup.
You can see it in her movie where, oh, you can see it in her 73 questions where it says, I think they say everything she says is the thought you had when you were 20, you know, and it does matter. So it's like the other theme of the movie is you can't love anyone else until you love yourself. Great. Good message. But we know. We know. I gave that advice to people when I was 20, right? And also like, that's like youth group advice. That's like, what? This is our level one.
And she's, but she's giving it to us as her, you know, she's 50 years old and has finally done her own project fully by herself. And this is what she has to pass on. But she's like that with a lot of things where it's like, she's got that first thought idea. It's like the novel that she needed to write, but she didn't need to release it, but she doesn't know how to do that. Like, she only knows how to perform in public, right? And also, it's not the novel. She still hasn't done it.
But that movie talking about why she had so many relationships and then ends back up within it. It's because he was the right astrological sign and she, she fixed the heart factory by loving herself. It's not it. No, no, no, no, no. That's not it. That's not why you called on your wedding three days prior to been athletic and within six months are married to Marc Anthony. I can't be it.
Hey, it's Ann. I wanted to give you a heads up on some of the episodes we're working on so you can submit your questions. Next week we're recording with a guest host who wrote a memoir about her former life as a tradwife. What do you want to ask her about that experience and about the fascination with tradwives right now? Later this month we'll be recording with Nick Qua about something kind of meta, the state of podcasting today.
Whatever you want to know about this weird and struggling industry, Nick can answer. We're also working on a show about cooking that we're still kind of trying to figure out. It's something like why does the internet make finding something to cook feel overwhelming but also what does it mean that we can all find and cook recipes from other cultures and also how does cooking tie you to your roots or not.
So something something about the internet and cooking we need your questions to help us figure it out. As always if none of these shows inspire you tell us what you would like to hear. You can submit questions and show ideas in the same place. It's at tinyurl.com slash culture study pod. Thank you so much for being such a huge part of what makes this show so fun to make and to listen to. We literally cannot do it without you. Okay back to the show.
Okay so next question I think is about aging in public and I think we have to talk about this. Let's hear from Joanna. Why is JLo still doing the Anjanu thing? It is wild to me that I a fully fledged middle aged woman am all the way in my comfy pants and flat shoes era while she 10 years my senior keeps trying to play the young babe. Is there any hope that she will give us middle aged people some real representation? It only kind of works genetics and plastics only get you so far. What gives?
Okay. I have complicated feelings about this because I've watched and I've written about what has happened with Madonna. Just the incredibly exacting standards that we have that somehow you should not age. But if you try to keep yourself young you become monstrous. And I think that JLo feels most herself. And again this is probably in part because she hasn't done some of that harder interior work. She feels most herself when she looks the way that she looks when she was 30.
Yeah. This one's a hard one for me because I love it. I love it. Yes. I want to see. I mean what is she want 52, 53? And she's like almost 55. Yeah. All I wear are crop tops, stilettos. I looked better than an AI version of me and the movie hustlers by all that olive oil or whatever she uses. And she's just going to be the hottest thing forever. I actually think we've got some great other representation. And I like JLo. I love that JLo is delivering sex pot well into her 50s. I love it.
I think it's fantastic. There's that meme that says here's what we thought of women when they were 50 years old. I believe it's the 80s and the girls. It was like the girls. Yeah. And then it's and the other picture is JLo at 50. And I think this is just a different type of representation for women. I'm here for it. Yeah. And you know, I always feel like there's these conversations about or at least I hear them in like everyday life.
Like, oh, are these shorts like too short for me at my age, right? Is this too young? And what like where what makes you feel good? And I think we've gone to that point when it comes to body image in a lot of other ways, at least like collectively like that is how we we've agreed that we can talk that way. But also I think we're still stuck in some funky age stuff in terms of like. Absolutely. But why are they wearing a crop top when they're over the age of 50? And you know what?
Everyone stay in touch because you'll see me in a bikini at 71. And I mean, I, I, and I plan to do it. I think, you know, Dolly Parton just wore the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader uniform, which is a full midriffed and she had a full spank spot. I see you on underneath, which I respect. And I think it's interesting who we let be sexy for how long. And I, it's just like you said, if J.Lo looked an inch different, she'd be punished by so many people economically career wise, the roles she gets.
She's doing what everyone wants, which is to look like you're 28. However, my favorite part of the documentary is when Ben is like, why are you, why are you writing your, why are you saying ages 28? Yes, that's part. And it's so wild because she cast her real group of friends as real 28 year olds. But then she's sitting with them being like, right guys? Like, this is the friend group. And it's like, wait, this was not the correct decision. Why? Why?
Yeah, no, I think she's, that's where she's living, right? Like that is where, that is where she feels comfortable. And like I hope that she doesn't, I don't know enough about like her the way that she regimes her body. Like obviously she works out all the time. I know that she does that and she puts that all over her Instagram. But I hope she's not like, I hope she still eats things, right? Like I hope she.
Well, I mean, you know, they called her fat and heavy set when she was auditioning to be a fly girl. Those words are written in Rosie's book as something I think keen and set about her. And the whole thing was you have to lose weight. And that happened to her when she's what, 18, 19, 20, as the barrier between, are you going to make it in life or not? You know, she's, she's a product of that. Yeah. And I love that wish. Beautiful.
I mean, like there, and there's grace that we can offer to people who have, we're so firmly ensconced and are so firmly ensconced in that understanding of like self-value. It's hard. But yeah, it is really hard stuff. Like you said, there are a lot of other examples of people who have chosen different ways to age. And I think like not everyone has to take the same avenue. That would be my take. Yeah. Yeah, I think that diversity to women's aging is actually better for us than all of them.
I don't know. A modernized version. And don't forget, she's got a bedazzled Starbucks cup with the Starbucks logo. Also bedazzled. So she's delivering. I would call that a staunchly 51 year old take on coffee. How old is Bradley Cooper? Hold on, let's, let's, I'm going to Google this. Age. Bradley Cooper is 49. So he is not that much younger than Jay-La. Oh, yeah. And someone's like, why is Bradley Cooper going to hang out at Taylor Swift concerts and dating?
Is it GG had a date or a Bella had a date? GG. GG. He is wearing giant beanies, oversized blazers and flip-pants that sweep the floor because Baggy is in for Gen Z. With his young girlfriend, like, Cruz in New York, and everyone's like, what a funny thing to wear versus like, stop. I just Googled to Channing Tatum, it's 44. And people are like, you know why you should stop trying to be so cut? Yes, I forgot. No. Okay, next question.
This I need some help with because I haven't seen all of the things that are referenced in this. So, this is acknowledging that J.Lo does not make her image on her own. No celebrity makes their image on their own. It's also like an image is the collection of things that people say about the celebrity. So let's hear the question from Anna, which melody is going to read. How did an A-list celebrity and her team lose such control of the narrative?
The TikTok misinformation and also legitimate ribbing seems like it's permanently altered her public image. To me, J.Lo is a great famous person, but it seems like great swaths of the celebrity watching population now really dislike her. Okay, I want to start first with us talking about the first part, in which I agree so much, which is that she is a great famous person. Fantastic. What makes her such a great famous person?
I do think it goes back to that likability, which is fascinating because she didn't have it at the beginning of her career. She actually was quite vicious and it's a learned likability and it's also one that means she needs to stop trying to do these documentaries where you have to be authentic because you need to learn how to be unlikable in those places and she won't let it go. I also think it's because her talent is being her image and her personality and her persona. She's a great performer.
You don't go, oh, what a great singer, what a great actress, what a great performer. And her fashion is always giving. And that's important. That's what she dress, she's always delivering looks when she's getting groceries, she's got a look on, that's a lot of work. Yeah, that's what I think. What do you think? Yeah, I think she also, she has charisma, like she does. I just think you can't argue with that.
And that's something that can't be taught, it can be amplified, but it can't, it's either there or it's not. I think of her like laughing, like she always, she seems like she's having a good time being this celebrity. Yeah. And that's always been the thing about her. And the contrast between her and Ben is that like, Jailos, like, I love being a celebrity and Ben has never liked being a celebrity.
Yeah. And you know, in every documentary she does, she says no and I'll ever know what I think or how I feel. That's who I am, right? That's true. And I think for most of our years with celebrities, perhaps until this one, that is the way to crush being a celebrity. But loser should on paparazzi don't say the wrong thing. Don't show that you're bored at the very boring awards show that has been showing on his face.
I think of this year as a turn of, of wanting authenticity and having access to it on TikTok and all these places where what's made her so great isn't working anymore. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about this, what's happening on TikTok? Because first of all, I don't think that the conversations that happened on TikTok are actually things that the vast majority of this celebrity consuming public actually knows in any way.
I would say that the vast majority of America, especially over the age of 30, still thinks of J-Lo kind of the same way that they did five years ago. If you're on TikTok, she's, I don't think she's going back on TikTok. That doesn't mean that she can't come back in other spaces and I still think she's a people magazine favorite and she just branded it all up. And yes, TikTok has her number in a few ways and in a few ways that I think are unfair too.
There's a bunch of videos that I wouldn't quite give credence to that have become quite viral. Like what? Can you give me an example? So the ones where I'm like, yes, this is real. They're pulling her 73 questions where the guys like, so what's your order at the bodega and he puts a little thing on it? He's like, oh, right. And she gives her bodega order and then everyone, why was that question in the 70's? I mean, the 73 questions, it's just so clear that her team asked for it.
That guy's not asking that question to Nicole Kidney and then he does her 73 questions. And her order makes no sense. It's like ham and cheese on a roll with a small bag of chips and not orange drink. And everyone is on TikTok being like, what the, everyone from the Bronx is like, we don't know what an orange drink is. But she's like, if you know you know, and they're like, we don't, what is this? So it feels like an orange Julius? Like what does it say?
If it was an orange Julius, I'm like, yeah, let's go to the mall. Let's go to the mall. I think like people, she specifically looks at the camera and says, if you know, you know. So she's trying to be like, right, everyone in the Bronx on the block where I lived, where I was Jenny and all of TikTok went, no. So things like that, I'm like, yeah, you know, they got under the hood there. There's other videos where it's like, she doesn't tip well, she won't look you in the eyes.
And she, you know, her ensemble, that's not what it's called, her, her entourage. Entourage. Entourage is like very rooted restaurants. And that's where I sort of have a sliding scale because the amount of times I've heard of a celebrity who doesn't allow other people to look them in the eyes is too many for all of them to be true. Right. Right. So I just don't know, you know, or it was like some, you know, some member being like, hey, don't look at Jailo, she walks by, I'm sure that's true.
I'm sure they were rooted that restaurant. But I just think those things have more of a personalized take on them than an entire like, we can say this is fact. Did she try to make a TikTok herself? No, it was just excerpts from the like, the questions and that sort of thing. No, no, yeah, it was just people pulling the 73 questions themselves pulling clips of it.
The other big thing is that there was this woman who made a bunch of Jailo videos and Jailo's team sued for copyrights because it's the way to get these videos that are going by viral better way to get them taken down. And so this woman is like very upset she's lost her accounts. There's so many copyright notices and her team has gone through and made them all. And this woman later dies. And TikTok was like Jailo killed her. Now obviously I don't, that's not true.
Yeah. So that's where it's like I think TikTok is like really gone too far. Right. However, you know, this woman did make these videos about her and talk about her and like really sadly has passed away. I think that what this suggests to me is that there's something about Jailo's personality that is not quite amenable to the way that TikTok handles celebrity. To me Jailo is such a young Gen X millennial celebrity who looks like a Gen Z skin wise. See and that's right.
And so like that makes her vulnerable to this critique in a way that like I'm trying to think above a contemporary. Like I mean Reese Witherspoon I've seen some of her stuff like on Reels and stuff like that but she's not trying to be like she has kids who are that age who are Gen Zers. And so she's less of that like. I do think that Reese had put out a movie in it and a docuseries. I think the same thing she would get for her. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For sure. Yeah. And I do think, you know, it's like it's weird that one of her first songs is called I'm Real because Jailo refuses to be real and TikTok is about authenticity. Right. Can we talk about the how did her team lose the narrative? Yeah. Okay, yes, please. Because so this is what this was what blew my mind when I was reading her book.
She talks about her manager Benny and everyone will talk about Benny as like that's the first person you're going to hear from and he's like this real British force in the industry. And so she's really there. The fresh prince of Bellaire became a show, right? That's his life story that then gets pitched to become the fresh prince of Bellaire. And he's been on the team the whole time and has had this very specific narrow way of looking at the industry that really works back then.
And he's still trying to play it now. Right. And he's not working anymore and no one in her they're all so insulated. They've all been doing the same thing for so long. They really need a bold intern who's ready to get fired to speak up and say something. Right. Because what is her agent who's in the documentary who also has been with her forever, right? Yeah, and a producer. Yeah. And like her wardrobe, everything. Everyone has been with and I that loyalty I understand it, right?
It's like these people get me they probably don't say no to me as often. How can you they're all on the payroll? Right. And oh, this is what's so important. Oh, I'm so glad I didn't forget to say this. She lost her best friend. She and Leah Rimini had a quiet friend break up. She does not have her female best friend to stand there and say, don't do that. What the fuck is this? Not that this this. They're not friends anymore. She wasn't at the wedding to Ben.
And yet her photo is the one that Leah Rimini's photo is the one that leaked her and been being together. So you can see this time span when they stop being friends. And I think Leah wasn't on the payroll. Leah was her friend and I don't think she has enough of those people anymore. Yeah. I mean, we say this about like, you know, CEOs like whatever. Like you need someone who is going to say real shit to you and say like, maybe maybe no. About how the. Do you just say $20 million?
I think we could take a tax credit on that if we put it in the trash. Maybe the fact that no studio wants to make your movie is a sign, right? Like, I think that there's a painful thing because you know, whatever people ask me for advice, my number one piece of advice is make your own work. No one knows what they're doing. Yeah, no, I've done. I've done. And then JLo took $20 million and in the docu series says, what if it's great? What if everyone's wrong and it's great? And then it.
And then she kind of was the thesis of like, yeah, sometimes when you make your own work, it doesn't go well. And that's an important lesson too. Yes. I still love her though. I still love her. Why do you two? This is the thing is I love her so much and she's such a good celebrity. And she, do you get her newsletter? Of course I do. Of course I do. And it's it.
Hello, if you are listening person who makes JLo's newsletter, you cannot put pictures in the newsletter and make them an inch by an inch. Make a bigger, my friend. I don't know who's making you do this. And also whoever's designing her merch, they got to be fired. Did you see the merch? This is me now.
It was a forest green hoodie and it was, this is me now was printed on the back, but on the shoulder, then on the back and then on the shoulder, which means anytime someone moved to their arms, it would be like, hisses, it was, what's going on you guys? Coming on her, her whole motif was subway stops. You gotta get a better ear now there. That's not you now.
No, well, I, you know, going back to the fact that she's kind of basic, even like the title of the documentary is the greatest love story never told. Like, you still never told it. Come on. You got back together with Ben in the pandemic after 20 years separation. How, who called who? And how does Jennifer Garner feel watching an entire movie be made about how you and Ben were destiny, which means the previous 20 years of your life were, and she kids, three, how does Mark Antony feel?
I, you know, I'm not so concerned with him. I know, I was going to be actually, I'm controlling of her. And I, and I really like Jennifer Garner a lot. And so I, I do think she probably is like, huh, interesting. I mean, if my, if my husband and I divorced and he ended up with someone he even went on one date with before me, I would drive my car into their house. I feel like, well, you already knew her. What, what, what? What? I felt kind of dirty wishing in the documentary for so much more Ben.
Like, he was my favorite part. Yeah. And I think it's because he is so bad at being a celebrity, that the things that he says was when you're bad at being a celebrity, you can either be super boring, right? And just like so, but now, or you can inadvertently say things and make faces that like give away the truth, right? So like every time that like Ben is sucking on a cigarette and just like miserable with his Duncan's iced coffee, like I'm like, oh, right?
Like he is, he is so compelling and likable in that documentary. And also the scenes with them together, I am not, and I am so fine if, if one day I realize I'm so wrong about this, but like, I'm not here for the like, he hates being with JLo and she makes him miserable. I mean, oh, no, that man was on Raya. Okay. Yeah. He was out and out. It's not like there was no one for Ben to choose. I think they really do love each other and I do too.
I think he is the only person in her life saying like, don't, well, I don't know, that script still went to, they still filmed it. I don't know. He rises her, like he's the only person who can like effectively raise her. And Jane Fonda. Yeah. And I was just going to say and Jane Fonda, maybe like if she had a couple more janes in her life, I truly didn't get, turn the ship around and I still think we can.
Yeah. Maybe a couple more decades, but I look forward to the documentary when she's in her 70s. JLo is eternal for me. And I, you know, it's so funny and the 73 questions they say, what would the title of your memoir be? And instead of saying, I already wrote one and it's horrible. She said, dance again and again and again. She just gave it in title like she didn't already memoir. And it does make me think there is a memoir coming.
If she gets the right ghost writer and I think it could be beautiful. Dance again and again and again. Well, you got to change the title. That's your first job. Thank you so much. If people want to find more of you on the internet, where can they find you? Go listen to my podcast, Glamrs Trash with Chelsea De Montes. We have, yeah, we've got like a hundred and twenty hundred and fifty episodes on there.
It's ready for the taking and also I'm on Instagram at Chelsea De Montes and the way I started by podcast was book clubbing the books in my Instagram stories. So if that's your thing, come be a part of the digital book club and you know, my book is everywhere. I did the audio book too. So go get my longest podcast yet. I hope everyone goes out and gets your memoir. It is going to be the memoir.
I mean, like if you've read this many celebrity memoirs, like I can't imagine a better training to write your own memoir. So thank you. Thank you. You know, for everyone listening, it is half a comedy gal memoir. It's half funny and it's half absolutely heroine trauma. Whatever the opposite of JLo's memoir is where it's mostly pictures, I did the opposite of that. So if that's your thing, go get it. Amazing. Thank you again.
Thank you, Anne. So if you were a paid subscriber right now, you'd be getting to ask Anne anything segment. This week I'm answering two questions. One about how to handle it when you become the default person to plan all the baby shower hours and wedding showers and birthday parties. And then another question about how to handle it when your dog gets older.
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So good, but also I just started googling and like today there are rumors going around that bend and Jen are splitting. But it's an anonymous source. And the sources are weird. It's not in People magazine. What do you think of that melody? Yeah. Oh, I mean, if it's not in People, it's not real. Right. Yeah. For TMZ and people is my understanding. Yeah, yeah. The TMZ is real. The TMZ is real. But allegedly he's moved out of their marital abode. Yeah, I don't want it to be true.
I don't want it to be true. Oh my gosh. The note we're going to have to put on that if it comes to be true. And then me saying, look, I'll be wrong, but I don't like that he's not with her.