Last year, before the coronavirus pandemic turned life upside down, Jennifer Lopez was a fixture at award season, earning best supporting actress nods for her work in Hustlers. When she wasn't nominated for an Oscar, outlets deemed it a snub, and the actress ultimately didn't even attend the ceremony. A year later, Lopez is ready to talk about how that incident affected her and ultimately changed the way she looks at awards period.
In a new interview with Allure, Lopez reflected on the snub. "I was talking about this the other day," she started. "[My production partner] Elaine [Goldsmith-Thomas] made a post where she listed all the things I had been nominated for and won that season. And when it came to the Oscars, it was so obviously absent. It was a sting.”
"I was like, 'Okay, when you’re supposedly in everybody else’s mind supposed to be nominated and you’re not, what does that mean? Is it really real? Are the other ones real and this one isn’t?' It came to a point where I was like, 'This is not why I do this. I don’t do this to have 10 Oscars sitting on my mantel or 20 Grammys,'" she continued.
"The point is creating and the joy that I get from the things I get to put out in the world that entertain and inspire and empower people,” she said. “I think my life is about more than awards."
This isn't Lopez's first time addressing the snub. In March 2020, shortly after the ceremony and with the wound still fresh, Lopez talked to Oprah about it. "I was a little sad because there was a lot of buildup to it," she said, per Variety. "There were so many articles. I got so many good notices—more than ever in my career—and there was a lot of 'She’s going to get nominated for an Oscar. It’s going to happen; if she doesn’t, you’re crazy.' I’m reading all the articles going, 'Oh my god, could this happen?' And then it didn’t and I was like, 'Ouch.' It was a little bit of a letdown."
