JLo: ‘People underestimate me’

CEBU, Philippines - Jennifer Lopez gave an unfiltered new interview to W magazine for its May 2016 cover story, opening up about the resentment and failure she grappled with following her 2011 split from her third ex-husband, Marc Anthony.

The superstar — whose famous exes also include Sean “Diddy” Combs and Ben Affleck — seemingly threw shade at her musician ex and his skills in the sack in the no-holds-barred piece.

“I’ve been in the grind and the game for a long time,” Lopez, 46, said. “At a certain point, people respect you when they see you fall down and get back up. The more you’re in this life, the more they celebrate your triumphs. When it comes to work, I never get tired. But with personal failures, I have thought, ‘This is too hard.’”

This includes the demise of her seven-year marriage to Anthony, 46. The couple, who share eight-year-old twins Emme and Max, separated in 2011 and finalized their divorce in 2014.

“When my marriage ended, it was not easy to find forgiveness. It wasn’t the dream that I had hoped for, and it would have been easier to fan the flames of resentment, disappointment and anger. But Marc is the father of my children, and that’s never going away. So I have to work to make things right. And that is, by far, the hardest work I do.”

“I hung in there for seven years,” the singer-actress continued. “I knew very quickly that it wasn’t the right thing.”

Lopez and Anthony both moved on after their marriage ended: She has been dating Beau “Casper” Smart on and off since late 2011, while Anthony married for the fourth time to Shannon De Lima, in 2014.

“We got together and broke up, and are now together again,” Lopez said of her “Bear,” who’s a dancer and aspiring actor. “I still think about getting married and having that long life with someone. I love the movie ‘The Notebook.’ A dream of mine is to grow old with someone.”

The hopeless romantic later joked about being asked some uncomfortable questions about her sex life in a prior interview. “Last time I was here, they asked me, ‘Who is better in bed — dancers, musicians or actors?’” Lopez recalled. “I said, ‘Dancers!’”

“Musicians are too self-absorbed,” she elaborated. “They are too concerned with themselves to be great in bed.”

The multi-hyphenate also has a problem with people who think she’s all beauty, no brains.

“People may now think I’m nice, but they still act surprised when I’m smart,” the Latina mused. “It’s a man’s world and, truly, people in a business setting do not value a woman as much as a man. I feel like I’m constantly having to prove myself. If a man does one thing well, people immediately say he’s a genius. Women have to do something remarkable over and over and over. People underestimate me. They always have, and maybe that’s for the best. It’s fun to prove them wrong.” (FREEMAN)