June 5, 2026, 7:24 p.m. ET
JLo is 10 toes down for New York City and wants everyone to know it.
In a June 5 episode of the “Subway Takes” podcast, Jennifer Lopez, 56, explained how she determines whether someone is a real New Yorker.
“You have to be born in New York to be a New Yorker,” Lopez told host Kareem Rahma. “Yes! I know everybody wants to claim the city.”
“Everybody wants to claim our city, but you have to be born in New York. You have to be born in one of the five boroughs to be a New Yorker,” she added.
A New York transplant, Rahma told Lopez that “everyone” said he could call himself a New Yorker after he lived in the city for 10 years, as the “Maid in Manhattan” star quipped, “said no New Yorker ever.”
Initially aghast by the take, Rahma posed a hypothetical for clarity, asking if a 90-year-old who had spent 50 years in New York had earned the right to call themselves a New Yorker.
“I have to say no,” Lopez said. “You take on characteristics probably by that time. You have a New York sensibility. You pay… You pay New York taxes.”
“When you’re born in New York is when you’re really a New Yorker,” Lopez added. “I’m glad this was my first take. Jenny from the block forever, baby.”
JLo: ‘Self-love should be taught’
Hometown pride aside, another topic Lopez feels passionate about is self-love, which is something she believes should be a “subject in school from kindergarten all the way through college.”
“Because they teach us things intellectually, but an intellectual (expletive) with no emotional intelligence is dangerous! It’s a dangerous person. Okay?” Lopez said on the podcast.
“And if you fail, just like anything else, you can’t go out in society. You can’t have a job. You have to keep going until you become a good person,” Lopez added.
