I thought she'd [her mother] offer me some sympathy. Instead, she said, 'Don't you ever call me crying again! You wanted to be in this business, so you better toughen up!' And I did.

I am positive - determined to move forward with my life, bring up my babies, and do the best job I can as a mother, entertainer, and person.

I would never speak about specifics in my own relationships because I think it's tacky. If you seriously want to know, listen to the music.

But the idea of taking things and mixing them together is what I do in my music. I take hip-hop, R&B, pop, dance, funk and soul and mix it all together to get my own sound.

Things don't always turn out exactly the way you want them to be and you feel disappointed. You are not always going to be the winner. That's when you have to stop and figure out why things happened the way they did and what you can do to change them.

You can’t let the fear of what people might say or think stop you from doing what you want to do or else we would never do anything.

I'd be stupid not to take into consideration that there are certain things people will not consider me for because my name is Lopez. And I know I can do any kind of role. I don't want anybody to say, Oh, she can't pull this off. So those are barriers that you have to overcome.