Jennifer Lopez is celebrating her 57th birthday with some words of wisdom.
Taking to Instagram on Friday, July 24, the “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” singer commemorated her special day by posting a video of herself riding in a car with the windows down as the sun shined on her and the wind gently blew across her hair.
JLo chose a reading of Theodore Roosevelt’s poignant 1910 speech, “The Man in the Arena” as the audio to accompany the post.
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better,” the speech begins.
The passage made famous by the late president then praised “the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again.”
For her part, Lopez captioned her Instagram with a simple message, writing, “When you keep going it just keeps getting better ✨🥳.”
In the past, Lopez has spoken candidly about the rhetoric surrounding aging in the public eye.
Speaking to Elle in 2020 ahead of launching her JLo Beauty collection, Lopez said age should never be mentioned when complimenting someone’s looks.
“You never want to hear you look great for 50. [People] want to just hear you look great, no matter what age you are. And for me and for the company, that is a big part of it,” the actress told the outlet at the time. “We don’t want people going, you look great for 60, 50, 40, 35. You want people to just go, wow, you look amazing.”
She continued, “[When people say] ‘Oh my God, she’s 50.’ It’s like, does it matter? You’re just your best self, no matter what.”
In December 2024, Lopez also reacted to a reporter who joked about her age “getting up there.”
“Listen, I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since Selena. I can’t believe that 30 years we do the retrospective of this and you will be 60 by then,” a reporter said in a video obtained by TMZ at the time.
“It’s funny you think that I’m getting up there,” Lopez began, while the journalist interjected to clarify that his comment was a “joke.” Lopez appeared unfazed by the remark, and instead chose to praise the audience.
“It’s because I want to say thank you, you guys. Because we’ve been doing this a long time together. Been doing it a long time and you guys have been here with me,” Lopez said. “Today, I was singing some new songs and I went back and sang ‘If You Had My Love,’ which is my first song, 1999. It’s that thing, of like, what a journey this has been.”
She continued, “I honestly feel that the best is yet to come. I honestly feel that my creativity and who I am as an artist — like you said, I also feel that this for me, was another kind of level for me of going deeper into who I am as a person, as an artist.”
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