Jennifer Lopez Says Marc Anthony Gave Her Confidence to Sing

Jennifer Lopez's red hot Vogue cover image landed last week and now, the feature story is available. In the interview, the multi-talented entertainer and businesswoman speaks about how her marriage to soon-to-be-ex Marc Anthony gave her confidence to sing... Not to mention two adorable kids!

It's refreshing that J. Lo was able to speak so lovingly about her baby daddy instead of gushing about her new romance. "He always told me what a beautiful voice I have," Lopez, who has moved on with dancer Casper Smart, 24, said to Vogue. "He was like, 'It’s in there; you just gotta let it out. It's a confidence thing with you.' Then all of a sudden one day I was like, 'I’m good at this!'"

She qualified that woe-is-me statement by saying, "People are not giving me jobs because they feel sorry for me! I am an actress. I am a singer. I am a performer. That’s what I do! Once I started giving myself a little credit, the whole world opened up."

Even though Anthony gets a gold star for helping Lopez to blossom, so to speak, she did share some details about the painful break up. "It became about something else. It’s just really, really sad," she mused about why they parted ways.

"We are still going through it, and it’s emotional sometimes and difficult," she continued. "We’re still friends -- and we’re parents. But it’s going to take time. It's tough. But for the most part, I feel very proud of the way we're handling it. I really do. We are doing the best we can for the kids… It's very dignified and trying to be above all the emotions and pain that come along with a divorce and a family breaking apart. This is grown-up stuff. It’s real, serious, grown-up stuff."

We also get to read about Lopez's maternal nature when she talks about the difficulties of dispensing tough love to her kids. She acknowledged, "By nature I am not tough, believe it or not. I am a lover. And with my kids I am even softer. I realize with my son, I have to sometimes be tough, especially now when he’s pushing boundaries. With my daughter, I can get a little stern with her and she pretty much will listen. But my son will just scream and yell and run. I’m like, 'Aaaaah, what do I do with this?!'''

See, strip away the diamonds, the gowns, the hot, younger boyfriend, the multimedia empire and the fame, and you find out J. Lo is just like the rest of us. Okay, maybe that's pushing it, but her comments about her split and her kids make her just so relatable.