Jennifer Lopez Reveals What People Told Her When She Joined 'American Idol' in 2011

Jennifer Lopez is on the cover of Variety‘s latest issue!

Here’s what the 50-year-old actress and entertainer had to share with the mag…

On how her relationship with Alex Rodriguez makes her stronger: “He loves being at every show that he can be at. I go to all his baseball games. There were times in my life when my career was going great, and my personal life was going OK. And there were times my personal life was stable, but my career was not great. This is the first time where I have a really beautiful alignment between the two. I think Alex brought that for me. I love it. We have a beautiful life.”

On more than one Hollywood director remarking on the size of her backside: “They would never say to a guy, ‘Your d— is really big.’”

On doing a G-string dance in Hustlers: “I was terrified. I felt exposed. I was like, ‘I’ve never done anything like this. I’m going to be up there in f—ing dental floss. What is this? Who is this person?’ And then you get up there, and you have to have a ‘f— you,’ empowered attitude. You have to take your power back. You have to be so bold. It’s almost like when you say you’re a rock star, you have to be arrogant to go up there in front of all those people or you crumble. You realize it’s the same type of balls that it takes to do something like that. And these women have that. They are tough, hard, vulnerable and damaged. It’s a great character to play.”

On how joining American Idol in 2011 as a judge helped boost her career: “It was a big turning point in my 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.’ 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?’”

For more from Jennifer, visit Variety.com.