Why Jennifer Lopez’s Friends Warned Her Against Joining ‘American Idol’

Jennifer Lopez was a part of “American Idol” for its final three seasons before it was revived. While the Latin star revealed that signing on as a judge of the music competition series in 2011 was a breath of fresh air for her, many of her friends discouraged her from joining the show at first.

Jennifer Lopez was so thrilled when she received an offer to become a lead judge of the talent search. At that time, the quadruple threat was still married to Marc Anthony and didn’t have many projects on her plate.

“I had the kids and wasn’t being offered a whole bunch of stuff,” she said. “I really concentrated on my marriage. I was going around with Marc. I went on two or three tours with him,” she added.

Although she didn’t have plans to ink another deal at that time, Lopez admitted that she was thrilled by the offer to join “American Idol.” The singer-actress hoped that becoming a judge for the show would display her real character, which she felt had been unfairly judged in the press after her ill-fated romance with Ben Affleck in 2002.

Lopez admitted being down in the dumps following her breakup with Affleck. She said she was unfairly maligned at that time, and she hated that she couldn’t do anything about it.

“It’s probably what kids deal with, with social media now. Like everybody hates me. No, everybody doesn’t hate you, it’s just a few people writing a few things,” she said.

Lopez shared that because of what she was going through around that year, many of her friends urged her to turn down the offer to join “American Idol.” According to Lopez, her friends told her that being part of the show might be the death knell to her career.

“Everybody was like, ‘Don’t do this. Your career will be over, and they won’t offer you any movies. They’ll think you’re a joke as an artist,’” said Lopez. “And I was like, ‘The truth is, I’m not getting offered a whole bunch of movies, so what are they not going to offer me?’”

Though Lopez had been with “American Idol” for only three seasons, she will always be grateful she didn’t listen to her friends. After all, the show has helped propell her into the world-renowned superstar that she is today.