Jennifer Lopez has found an unexpected muse: the quiet house left behind when her twins went off to university this autumn. Speaking to Marc Malkin of Variety in an interview published on 28 October, the 57-year-old singer and actor said that seeing her children leave home sent her straight back to the recording studio, and that the sessions have produced what she believes is some of the finest songwriting of her career.
From empty nest to recording studio
Lopez did not pretend the change was easy. She described the moment children leave as devastating, sad and frightening, explaining that they occupy so much of a parent’s mind for so long that their absence leaves you wondering what to do with all the new space and time. Her answer was to return to music. She told Variety the new material belongs to a very happy period of her life, calling the songs joyful and beautiful but with a small trace of tears running through them.
It is a theme she has been open about for weeks. In late September she posted a video on her JLo Beauty Instagram account in which she admitted to looking at old baby photographs, and said that keeping up her routines, from workouts to her skincare ritual, was what kept her steady. She also encouraged other parents in the same position to treat the moment as a fresh chapter for themselves and perhaps revisit a dream they had set aside while raising a family.
“Proof of Love” and a vinyl first
The first taste of the new era is a single called “Proof of Love”. Lopez describes it as an upbeat dance track with a deeper idea at its heart: that the pain and grief we feel when someone is no longer with us is itself evidence of love. Rather than treating that feeling as purely heartbreaking, she said she wanted to turn it into something positive. The song will appear as a bonus track on the first-ever vinyl edition of her 2011 album Love?, the record that gave us “On the Floor” with Pitbull. The vinyl arrives in November, with pre-orders opening on 28 October, and Lopez hinted that more playful tracks will follow.
It will be her first new music since This Is Me… Now in February 2024, and it comes after a summer spent touring Italy with her twins before term began. Back in July she told Extra how proud she was that both had won places, and scholarships, at the universities they applied to.
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Sources: Vanity Fair Italia; Variety (Marc Malkin, 28 October 2026); People; Harper’s Bazaar; InStyle.
