Jennifer Lopez struggled to hold back tears on live television as she opened up about her 18-year-old twins Max and Emme preparing to leave home for university — admitting she has been crying for two months and confessing she is dreading becoming an empty nester.
The 56-year-old superstar appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on 27 May and was visibly emotional as soon as the subject came up. “Don’t talk about it, I’ll start crying,” she told Kimmel, while choking back tears when asked about her kids graduating from high school. The warning came too late — she was already welling up.
Max and Emme attended different high schools and will be heading to different colleges, and Lopez said she “absolutely” plans to move them both into their dorm rooms, regardless of whether her appearance causes a commotion. When Kimmel pressed her on whether she would be heading to Target with them for sheets and supplies, she shut that down with characteristic confidence: “We have sheets,” she said. She told him she was planning to pack up their rooms at her £18 million Hidden Hills mansion and let them take what they need — but is quietly hoping they will not last long. “They’re going to realize that their dorms are too small. They’re going to miss home. I hope they want to come back real soon.”
The emotion, she explained, did not hit her gradually. For most of the year she had been upbeat about the transition. “All year people asked me, ‘They’re going away to college, it’s going to be terrible.’ No, it’s going to be great,” she recalled. “I want them to go out there. I want them to do what they want to do. They have big dreams.” That confidence held — until she sat down to write entries for the twins’ yearbooks two months ago. “When I tell you, the tears. Two days it took me to write those things,” she said. Kimmel asked whether she wrote different entries for each. “No, they’re two different people!” she shot back.
Despite the emotion, Lopez said she also remembered her own desperation to leave home at their age, acknowledging the irony of the situation with some self-awareness. “I remember being that age and thinking, I couldn’t wait to get out in the world and do my thing,” she said.
Lopez shares Max and Emme with her ex-husband, singer Marc Anthony. She publicly introduced Emme using they/them pronouns in 2022. In February, when the twins turned 18, Lopez posted a heartfelt tribute on Instagram, writing: “I love you beyond forever, my coconuts. It has always been the three of us. We have been on this journey together.”
The interview also coincided with a busy night for Lopez, who earlier in the day attended the 25th Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where she was presented with the inaugural Adelante Award for Industry. Festival co-founder Edward James Olmos said she had “helped define what was possible for Latino representation across film and television.”
When the twins move out, Lopez will be settling fully into the £18 million Hidden Hills bachelorette pad she bought following her divorce from Ben Affleck. According to a source who spoke to the Daily Mail, she is “thrilled” with the property, describing it as her “Barbie dreamhouse” — girly, fun and entirely her own. “She is free,” the source said.
