Jennifer Lopez Reveals The Mind-Blowing Question Barbra Streisand Asked Her When They Met: ‘It Was a Surreal Moment’

Jennifer Lopez has been a superstar for more than three decades. But during a chat with Howard Stern on his SiriusXM show on Wednesday morning (Oct. 15), the multi-hyphenate global icon admitted that she was dumbstruck when she met another does-it-all A-lister who asked her what it’s like to be so famous.

After gushing about her love of Cher — who she has never formally met — Lopez noted that she did, however, once meet another one of her ultimate heroes, movie, music, stage star and director Barbra Streisand, who blew her mind, but not of the reasons you’d typically expect.

“I met her twentysomething years ago when I was with Ben and I had the pink diamond ring,” she said of the opulent $2.5 million, 6-plus carat ring Affleck got for her when they first got engaged in 2002. “And she was fascinated with the diamond ring, so she talked to me. She was like, ‘can I see your ring?,’” Lopez recalled of the bling-loving legend.

“And then she said something about being famous,” Lopez recalled, forgetting the exact wording, but remembering that it struck her coming from one of the arguably most famous performers ever and, not for nothing, her mom’s favorite star. “I remember she asked about, ‘how do you do it… the fame?’ And I think to myself, ‘Is Barbra Streisand asking me how do I deal with the fame?’ It was a surreal moment and I don’t know what I said. Something stupid, probably, because I was dumbstruck and starstruck at the same time.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Lopez’s first visit to Stern’s show, the pair also touched on how Lopez was so heavily impacted by her parent’s divorce, including a touching story about the many years she spent sharing a room with her two older sisters and how the trio would spend the night before their parent’s anniversary staying up all night to create a new banner honoring their marriage.

Stern, who in the past was critical of Lopez — especially during her run on American Idol — was very complimentary of the singer/dancer/actress during the hour-plus chat, admitting that he was worried that he wouldn’t love her new movie musical, Kiss of the Spider Woman, because he’s famously not a musical theater fan.

“I think you will be nominated for Kiss of the Spider Woman,” Stern said confidently, asking Lopez if she got the chills when he made his forecast. “It would be great and if it didn’t happen it’s totally fine too” laughed Lopez, who, to date, has earned a Golden Globe nomination for her breakthrough role in 1997’s biopic Selena, but has never won a Grammy, or been nominated for an Oscar despite an extensive, 35-plus film resume.

The two also touched on Lopez’s love life, and how she’s now focused on being more private than she has been in the past.

After her second go-round with Ben Affleck flamed out last year following a second whirlwind romance and a wedding, Lopez — who said she has always “lived my life out loud” in her previous relationships — vowed that going forward she plans to be more private about her personal life. “I think I’ve made mistakes,” she said about proudly living her life in the public eye. “I wanted to share my life with someone. I want someone to be there when I’m having my big important moment on the red carpet. I want someone to be there when I’m doing… whatever it is I wanted to share that. So I didn’t hide from it and I spoke about it.”

But given the intense scrutiny she, and her children, were under during Bennifer 2.0, Lopez said after the past few years she, “wants to keep that part so much more quiet in my life… [I’ve learned] you have to change your behavior if you want to have a successful relationship in your life.”

While she didn’t name names, Lopez also sheepishly admitted that before her new stance dedicated to keeping things more low-key, there was a time around a decade ago when she “threw it out there” to a prominent guy she was interested in and he totally blew her off. “I just kind of moved on and thought, ‘okay, not for me,’” she laughed, instantly regretting even answering the kind of probing, titillating question Stern is expert at.

With Lopez weighing in several times already during the Kiss of the Spider Woman press run about the controversy spun up by the Trump White house, its MAGA base and right-wing commenters about Bad Bunny playing the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, Stern wondered if Lopez was insulted when she was packaged with Shakira, J Balvin and Benito at the 2020 game.

“For me it was always such a dream to do it, like my idols Madonna, like Diana Ross, like Prince and you wait for your turn,” she said. “And they’re like, ‘you’re gonna do it with Shakira, Gloria [Estefan, who turned down the offer], it was almost like you think that one Latin artist couldn’t do it by themselves. That was more the thing to me. Shakira deserved her own as well.”

Though she now thinks the set was “absolutely perfect,” and she’s proud to have shared the stage with Shakira and made a statement about Trump’s border policies via a set that featured children in cages, she agreed that the furor over Bad Bunny is a testament to the “weird place” the nation is at now during Trump 2.0. “We all know that, we don’t even have to talk about that, it’s bizarre, the whole thing is crazy,” she said.

“As musical artists it’s about sharing different ideas, different cultures, all of the things,” Lopez added. “I applaud the NFL for doing that, especially at this time, to go, ‘hey, we’re gonna put this artist in here for everybody to see because he’s probably the biggest f–king artist on the planet right now! That’s what they usually do, so that, to me, is a triumph for all of us.”