Was I really still that girl?
I always thought so, but then I remembered a conversation from years ago, back in the beginning of my career. I was in a meeting with my agent and stepped out for a call with my boyfriend at the time. Through the glass door, my agent could see that I was arguing and pleading. She asked my assistant, “Does Jennifer have low self-esteem?” My assistant looked at her like she was crazy. Later, when my assistant told me she had said that, we couldn’t stop laughing. Me? Low self-esteem? “That’s so stupid!” I told her. But was it really? That agent saw something I didn’t. She was a little bit older. Maybe she’d been through something like that herself, or maybe she’d seen it in others. Who knows what? All that mattered was, she knew it when she saw it in me.
ACCEPTING MY FATE
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Now I know I’m not perfect, but I know I was a good girlfriend, a good wife. I tried my best. I always put up that old Bronx fight! I went to the mat for every relationship I was in. I asked myself the hard questions: How can I fix things? What can I do to make the other person happier? Or, How can I take care of their needs? I was asking myself all these questions—they seemed like the right questions—but for some reason it still didn’t work out.
My life might have continued on like that forever, but then everything changed in 2008, when I had my beautiful babies, Emme and Max.
Marc and I had been trying to have kids ever since we got married. We never worried about birth control, figuring that nature would take its course and soon enough I would get pregnant. But the first few years of our marriage were kinda shaky, and with the stress of that, nothing happened. While at first it didn’t seem like a big deal, later on I began to worry.
After three years of marriage, our relationship had settled down a bit, and my career was kind of in a lull. I’d released a record that wasn’t my best one, and I hadn’t done a movie in a while. It was this strange in-between time. All my focus was on my marriage, and it felt like the right time to have kids—but I wasn’t getting pregnant. Marc already had three kids by two other women, so I began to think it was about me. Maybe this isn’t going to happen, I thought.
Right as I started thinking that way, I had a conversation with my dad while he was visiting one Sunday afternoon. “Things are going pretty well with Marc and me,” I told him. “And it’s not like we haven’t been trying to get pregnant. But it’s not happening. I don’t know. Maybe I’m not meant to have kids. I mean, I have this amazing career, wonderful friends, lots of extended family . . . Maybe that’s asking for too much. I guess my life is going to be about other things—my work and career—rather than having kids,” I told my dad.
And then he said something that was so simple and yet so profound that it stopped me in my tracks: “Well, why can’t you have both?”
It sounded like such a practical question, but when my dad said it out loud, it was like the wall I had created for myself with my insecurities and feelings of unworthiness cracked open and the light came through. I was able to see that I deserved to have that blessing as much as anybody else. No matter what happened, I could do this.
Everything I’d been telling myself about having kids and having a career came out of the fear that I wasn’t really worthy, that I didn’t deserve it. That I already had so much. It came straight out of a lack of love for myself. But my dad put it so simply: Why can’t you? And for the first time ever, I truly believed that I could.
The very next month, I got pregnant. It was almost as if I had to make the decision that it could happen before it did. But even when it did happen, I couldn’t believe it. It took seven pregnancy tests before reality would set in. And then seven weeks later I found out I wasn’t having only one baby but two. Twins! All I could do was laugh; all Marc could do was cry . . . tears of happiness.
Oh my God. I was really pregnant.
BECOMING A MOM IN FRONT OF THE WORLD
Six months into my pregnancy, I was scheduled to open the Movies Rock 2007 show, where Marc was also scheduled to perform. I was backstage with Marc as the show was about to begin. This was going to be my first real public appearance with my very pregnant belly, so I was a little nervous. As I walked out onstage, the first thing you saw was a gigantic belly draped in a white Versace dress, and people started clapping. They liked this Jennifer—the married woman, pregnant with twins, all safe and nice, rather than wild Jennifer, running around in clubs. It’s funny—when you’re single and out there doing your thing, people feel okay making you a target. But when you’re somebody’s wife, somebody’s mom, then they back off a little bit on criticizing you. It was new for me and it was nice.
People kept clapping, and soon everyone was on their feet. I felt like it was the babies’ first standing ovation, because people were clapping not only for me, but for the three of us! It was a very warm welcome to motherhood, and I was soaking it up. It felt like the first step toward redefining myself in the public eye as a mama. This was going to be the role of a lifetime.
TAKING A STAND
Any mom will tell you that becoming a mother is one of the most life-changing experiences you will have in life. My babies changed me in so many ways and even before they were born I started to notice the ways in which I started to see life differently.
There was one incident in particular that made me realize just how much they were changing me. When I was about six months pregnant, I was at an event and someone standing near me lit up a cigarette. Now, I’ve been around smokers my whole life and while it’s not something I enjoy, cigarette smoke had never bothered me before.
But now I was pregnant. I didn’t want to be inhaling the smoke, so I moved away from them. It was such a small thing, but it got me thinking: I’ve been around smokers before, but it never bothered me. I never even thought about the effect it had on me. But now someone lights up a cigarette and I don’t hesitate a second to move as far away as possible because I’m worried it will affect my babies . . . Why did I never think about that for myself? Why were my health and well-being not important? I loved these babies so much. I didn’t want anything to harm them in any way. Did I not hold myself in the same regard?
I realized that being pregnant, of course, wasn’t only about me anymore; I had two other people to take care of. But in order to take care of them, I needed to take care of myself. In fact, I always needed to take care of myself, I had just never thought about it before!
This was a different Jennifer. Before, I might get frustrated at something someone had done but I’d swallow my feelings and move on. But now, because of the babies, I was thinking differently, and I was going to do what I thought was right for them, and for me. And I wasn’t about to compromise.
It was a step, a tiny step, in the right direction. I was finally starting to behave in a way that was putting me and my twins first. It might seem like a small little thing, but this incident led to a big realization of how I was mistreating myself. That was the first of many ways in which my babies changed me, and there were more changes to come.
No matter how strong and self-confident I thought I was, I had ignored when things didn’t feel right. In reality, I was accepting things I didn’t want.
It was easy to blame other people for treating me in ways I didn’t like, but now I was seeing that I was the one at fault. The only way you can be mistreated is by allowing yourself to be mistreated, and that was something I did over and over again. Somehow, I needed to find that glimmer of self-respect, buried deep inside, that would allow me to say: I am never going to let that happen to me again. I needed to learn how to stand up for myself in a different way, but I didn’t know how.
So, here I was, that girl from the Bronx, fighting and fighting like I was supposed to . . . but who was I really fighting against?
“I’m still, I’m still Jenny from the block”
—“JENNY FROM THE BLO
CK”
Back to the Bronx was one of the most popular moments in the show because it was nostalgic. It took people back to that old-school hip-hop feeling, back to that time when you felt like you knew everything, to that hip-hop cockiness that made you feel so powerful, like you could take over the world and nobody was going to get the best of you.
The only way you can be mistreated is by allowing yourself to be mistreated.
As energetic as that moment was onstage, while I was putting it all together, the realizations were coming fast and furious. Performing it every night was reminding me of so many past missteps but also of the essence of who I really was. I might have lost my way, but Jenny from the Block was still alive and well. She was still in there.
SET LIST
“Hold It Don’t Drop It”
“If You Had My Love”
The dawn of a new day.
I rekindled the feeling that I had something to offer to the world.
For the first time in a long time, I felt closer to myself.
FUNKY LOVE
OBSESSED WITH LOVE
Over the years, love has been a constant theme in my music. I always knew this, but it was never clearer to me than when looking through my albums while putting the show together. I realized that over seven studio albums, I have more than sixty songs about love or with the word “love” in the title: “If You Had My Love,” “Could This Be Love,” “No Me Ames,” “Love Don’t Cost a Thing,” “I Need Love,” “I, Love,” “Baby I Love U!” “Loving You,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Wow. Even I surprised myself on that one. I guess I really had a lot to say on the topic; I was really trying to figure this thing out.
So now, in the show, after having gone from Hollywood to the Bronx, the Funky Love section would get to the heart of who I was as an artist. Love has always been my message. Love in all its glory, the good and the bad—wanting to get it right, always wanting, always hoping, always fighting. It’s about that passion that’s so intoxicating, and it can be as healing as it can be destructive.
This is what my music has always been about: being in love. Love love love love love. So we decided to kick this section off with “Hold It Don’t Drop It,” a retro R&B–flavored song that ironically—or not so ironically—is about not wanting to leave or give up on somebody. I wanted it to be half James Brown, half Tina Turner. So for this section, Zuhair Murad, who created the costumes for the entire show, designed a short, fringy, electric-blue dress with a floor-length maribou cape. I came out shaking my hips and thrashing my hair as the band pounded out the soulful throwback. There were three male dancers in the most sparkly, sequined suits that you’ve ever seen. They were like the Pips, dancing funk-inspired choreography and killing it dead. I sang in my grittiest voice about how I wasn’t going to leave, and it ended with the guys literally having to drag me off the stage, picking me up and throwing me over their shoulders as the band banged out the encore over and over until I finally gave up. It was metaphoric, I guess, for how reluctantly I would leave relationships, and never without a fight.
Every time I try to run, something keeps stopping me,
I try my best to turn around, but your touch won’t let me leave.
—“HOLD IT DON’T DROP IT”
From there, we would slow it way down. We had to, after that. I’d say to the audience, “I know I get carried away with love sometimes. It ain’t no secret. You guys want to talk about love? I have a lot of stories!”
They’d giggle. So would I. And that’s how we took them into the first real intimate moment of the show, an acoustic version of “If You Had My Love.”
“If You Had My Love” was my very first single from my very first album, a kind of defining song for me. I wanted to do it really pared down, so it would feel like a conversation—like I’m talking with the audience, sharing where I began and where I find myself now. The lyrics are all about the beginning of a new relationship and what I expect and what I want. And there’s a little bit of fear in there too, a feeling of, What will you do if I give you my heart?
In the verses, I’m trying to lay down the rules, but the chorus expresses all of the fear that I feel . . .
If you had my love and I gave you all my trust,
Would you comfort me?
Love has always been my message. Love in all its glory, the good and the bad.
After finishing the song, I’d look out at everybody and say, “That was the very first song I ever sang about love . . .” And every single night as I said it, the feelings and weight of all my experiences were right there in that phrase. “A lot has happened since then.” Again, we shared a laugh, because they knew what I was talking about . . . Because we’ve all been through it, right? I wanted to have that moment with them, to show that we’ve all been on this journey together. From the stage I could always see people nodding and smiling. They knew exactly what I meant the moment I said it.
It was my way of saying, Yeah, I’m up here onstage, but I’m human. And this is one area that I can’t seem to get right for some reason. It’s the moment in the show where I start to bare my soul.
What was amazing about doing that, night after night on the tour, was that every time I did it, I felt a little bit more forgiving of myself. There’s something liberating about standing up in front of a crowd of people and saying, I know that maybe I haven’t made the best choices. Maybe things haven’t always worked out. But I’m right here and I’m saying it. I’m not ashamed, and I’m still trying. In doing that, I discovered that sometimes it helps to make yourself vulnerable. The people, the songs, and the show were helping me to learn to forgive myself and accept myself for who I was, mistakes and all. Little by little I was healing.
A NEW CHALLENGE
After the babies were born, as I embraced my strength and regained my sense of self, I began to look around and take stock of the rest of my life, including my career and my relationships. I was on the road toward trusting my instincts, following my own heart, and I was beginning to see things more clearly. Once all of the other aspects of my life were in order, those that weren’t became impossible to ignore.
One of the areas of my life that fulfilled me during that time was being a judge on American Idol. It was a surprising safe haven during some very rocky times, and it profoundly changed my life.
When I first got the call to do Idol, it seemed like no one around me thought it was a good idea. A lot of things were in transition—Max and Emme were toddlers, my music and my acting were still in a lull, and I was concentrating on my family, traveling with Marc while he toured. It was a strange time, and I thought that doing Idol would be a new challenge, something different. Everyone around me seemed to think that doing a reality TV show would be some kind of comedown for me. For the most part, they urged me not to do it. But I disagreed.
“We’re in a new era,” I told them. “Television is the new radio. It’s how people get music.” For some reason, I knew it would be okay. I knew doing the show would bring other benefits too. I wanted to be home with Max and Emme, who were only two at the time, and working on American Idol, which shoots mostly in Los Angeles, would make that possible. I could make good money and stay put with my family. It seemed like it would be fun too. I really loved the show and believed that I had something to contribute to it. There were so many things about doing the show that I knew would be good. But I never imagined how much more, not only professionally but personally, American Idol would do for me.
When I was asked to do the show, I thought I was in a really good place. I was enjoying having a family and I loved being a mommy. This was so different from anything I’d done before. Would I really be up for this? Come on! I was a mom now. I could do anything! I had just birthed two human beings—from my belly!
I remember that day so clearly. The day that Max and Emme were born. The first time I saw them, I was in the hospital, lying on that table, having my C-section, and my doctor shouted: “Baby number one on the left!”
/> I looked, and there was Emme, arms outstretched, legs shaking, a little purple creature screaming at the top of her lungs, “Waaaaaaaaa!”
Then someone said, “Baby number two on the right!” I looked again and “Waaaaaaaaa!”—another little purple creature, screaming even louder: That was my Max.
I reached out and pulled them to my chest, and all I remember was kissing them and saying, I love you. I love you. I love you so much. I love you . . . It was instinctual. It was pure. It was unconditional. This was love—a love I had never felt before. It empowered me in a way that I could have never imagined.
This was love—a love I had never felt before. It empowered me in a way that I could have never imagined.
Naturally, after I had children, my life became about them. Suddenly, there are these two little beings who are totally dependent on you, who literally can’t live without you. It’s so easy to lose yourself in that beautiful world when you have babies. It’s magical and all encompassing.
True Love Deluxe Page 5