Jennifer Lopez was on the verge of leaving show business after being mocked for her voluptuous behind.

The Booty singer explained that she rose to stardom at a period when the celebrity body ideal was super-skinny, and that not fitting the mold contributed to her deciding to give up her dreams at some point.

The 52-year-old actress, singer, and dancer paved the way for other Latina actresses by being the first to earn more than $1 million for her performance in Selena.

She said: “There were many times where I was just like, ‘I think I’m just going to quit’. I had to really figure out who I was. And believe in that and not believe in anything else.

“When I started working, the beauty ideal was very thin, blonde, tall, not a lot of curves. I grew up around women with curves so it was nothing I was ever ashamed of.

“It was hard, when you think people think you’re a joke – like a punchline. But it wound up affecting things in a way that I never intended.”

Lopez says her boyfriend Ben Affleck was surprised by the bodily scrutiny she was subjected to in her new Netflix documentary Halftime, which premieres on Tuesday, June 14th. Lopez says she anticipated it as a female Latina.

Affleck said in the documentary, ‘I said to her once, “Doesn’t this bother you?” And she said, “I’m Latina, I’m a woman, I expected this.”‘

Lopez was furious when she was forced to split her Super Bowl halftime performance with Shakira, 45, in early 2020, according to the documentary.

In her new one-off video, directed by Amanda Micheli, Lopez calls their combined presentation the “worst idea in the world.”

Lopez, who has sold 80 million records and featured in over 40 films with George Clooney, including ‘Out of Sight,’ said she was also told she had to compromise on using the performance to criticize Trump.

She also discussed how difficult it was for her to return to work as a single mother with two children following her divorce from Marc Anthony.

‘As an artist I lost a little bit of who I was in trying to build a perfect life, and when my kids were three, I got divorced and I was a single mum with two little kids,’ she explained.

‘At 42, movie roles were not knocking on my door. As I was getting back to work, I really felt like I didn’t know what my value was any more,’ she said.

‘The first big job I did after I had my babies, and it was good for me at the time — people could see me for who I was, and it changed everything,’ she said of American Idol.