Jennifer Lopez Revealed Why It Was Hard to Work on an Album With Marc Anthony

Jennifer Lopez said Marc Anthony gave her more confidence as a singer. Still, she admitted that working with him on an album wasn't easy.

Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony spent three years working on her first Spanish album, Como Ama una Mujer. She decided to begin work on the album after she recorded the duet “Escapémonos” with Anthony. While she said that she enjoyed some elements of working with her then-husband, she admitted that it wasn’t easy. She shared why she preferred working with an “actual boss.”

Jennifer Lopez said it wasn’t easy to work with her husband Marc Anthony on an album

In 2004, Lopez and Anthony married. That same year, they began work on her first Spanish language album, Como Ama una Mujer. It took three years to come together, and Lopez said she was immensely proud of the result.

“Emotionally speaking, to me this album is more me than any other album,” she said, per Billboard.

Collaborating with Anthony was what originally made her want to record the album. Still, she said it was not always easy to work with her spouse. His criticism stung more than another producer’s would have.

“Marc and I have worked together for years; we did a duet on my first album,” she told Cosmopolitan in 2005. “It is easier to take criticism from an actual boss [than a husband] though.”

Jennifer Lopez said Marc Anthony made her feel more confident as a singer

While Lopez said working with Anthony posed some challenges, she appreciated the confidence he gave her. She has always thought of herself as a better actor than a singer, but Anthony made her feel more confident in her vocals.

“I’m not as gifted a vocalist as some of the girls that are out there, but I know I communicate,” she told Vanity Fair. “When I think of great vocalists, I think of Marc [Anthony], of Luther Vandross, of Whitney Houston. But Marc has helped me a lot with this; he always said I had a beautiful voice and that it was better than I thought it was.”

She said that working with Anthony on Como Ama una Mujer made her set a new standard for her vocals.

“I’ve matured as a singer,” she said. “Marc gave me confidence in the studio as well. When someone believes in you so much, you don’t want to let them down. And it’s also the material. I think this material lent itself to my voice. And it actually made me approach my new English album in a different way. I have a different standard now.”

She said she knew early on that the relationship wouldn’t work out

Lopez’s marriage to Anthony was her longest, with the couple finalizing their divorce after a decade. Still, she admitted that she knew early on that they weren’t the right fit.

“I hung in there for seven years,” she said, per Us Weekly. “I knew very quickly that it wasn’t the right thing.”

She said that some of the hardest work she does is co-parenting with her ex-husband.

“When my marriage ended, it was not easy to find forgiveness,” she said. “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.”