Meghan McCain Compared Jennifer Lopez's Time On The View To Kim Kardashian In The Worst Way Possible (2024)

Jennifer Lopez has earned her place as a major force in the entertainment business. From her acting to her music to her products, Lopez is a one-woman empire who shows no signs of slowing down.

While Lopez certainly has a large following of supporters, there are the inevitable detractors as well.

Case in point, when Meghan McCain shared her impression of Lopez backstage at The View. McCain's comments echoed a familiar belief that Lopez is a "diva." However, Lopez did get some support from gossip blogger Perez Hilton.

Meghan McCain Said Jennifer Was 'Deeply Unpleasant' Behind-The-Scenes Of 'The View'

In 2024, Meghan McCain shared her thoughts on Lopez during her Citizen McCain podcast.

McCain was a co-host on The View from 2017 to 2021 and met Lopez when she was a guest on the show. While things seemed perfectly fine on camera, McCain revealed her impression of Lopez was less-than-positive.

“I, too, share similar negative stories that apparently the entire world does too,” McCain said. “I actually feel bad right now because we’re turning to a point where there’s bullying happening to J.Lo. She just is a deeply unpleasant person.”

According to McCain, Lopez brought the “biggest entourage I’ve ever seen” during her visit to the daytime show.

“[Her team] was more than Kim Kardashian and the president,” McCain recalled. “I just don’t really understand why it was needed.”

McCain then claimed that Lopez was “not nice.”

“You don’t always have to be so nice, but it was surprising given that people like Kim Kardashian couldn’t be more delightful. When you’re coming on a show for a 10-minute segment… just fake it till you make it for 10 f****** minutes.”

McCain and her co-host, Miranda Wilkins, claimed Lopez went after their podcast when they posted a TikTok in April saying that Lopez is in her “flop era.”

“She had our video taken down for bullying,” McCain alleged. She said that the video was eventually reinstated on the social media app while Wilkins quipped, “We’re beefing with her right now.”

In that clip, McCain said that Lopez wasn't her "favorite" guest to interview on The View.

“I’m gonna get in so much trouble for this, but my big memory of J.Lo is there was a person whose entire job it was to hold up a mirror with lights while they were touching her up backstage,” McCain said in the clip.

She added, “I remember being like, ‘That poor man. What a weird job.’”

Lopez did get some support from Perez Hilton, who defended her against McCain's comments. Hilton claimed that he didn't hear any evidence that Lopez wasn't a nice person. While he agreed McCain was describing stereotypical "diva" behavior, Hilton didn't think it said anything about how Lopez treated people.

When searching for evidence of Lopez's mistreatment of others, many cite an interview Lopez gave early in her career.

In 1998, Lopez gave an interview with Movieline as her film career was starting to take off. The interview may not have seemed like a big deal at the time, but it would soon become infamous. Lopez gave some brutal opinions on fellow stars and it is said to be the source of many feuds over the years.

Salma Hayek once said that she could've been in Selena, the role that would forever be known as Lopez's breakthrough performance. This is something Lopez wasn't pleased with and let her feelings out in the interview.

"We’re in two different realms," Lopez said. "She’s a sexy bombshell and those are the kinds of roles she does. I do all kinds of different things. It makes me laugh when she says she got offered Selena, which was an outright lie. If that’s what she does to get herself publicity, then that’s her thing. Columbia offered me the choice of Fools Rush In or Anaconda, but I chose the fun B-movie because the Fools script wasn’t strong enough."

Lopez also didn't seem too pleased with Cameron Diaz when asked her opinion of the actress.

"A lucky model who’s been given a lot of opportunities I just wish she would have done more with," Lopez said when asked to characterize Diaz. "She’s beautiful and has a great presence, though, and in My Best Friend’s Wedding, I thought, When directed, she can be good."

Lopez's thoughts on Gwyneth Paltrow didn't fare much better.

"Tell me what she’s been in? I swear to God, I don’t remember anything she was in," Lopez said. "Some people get hot by association. I heard more about her and Brad Pitt than I ever heard about her work."

This interview would come back to haunt Lopez time and time again after her career exploded.

Jennifer Has Said She Isn't As Big Of A 'Diva' As The Public Makes Her Out To Be

While Lopez had had a reputation for being a "diva," she has made attempts to prove otherwise.

In 2002, Lopez was interviewed for BlackFilm.com and spoke about her role in Maid In Manhattan. In the film, she plays a maid who works at a hotel in Manhattan. Her character is barely noticed by the guests until she is mistaken for someone else.

Lopez claimed that this was a reality maids dealt with in hotels and believed the film accurately represented that.

• "I don’t think they are portrayed as persecuted as they are in this film, I just think that there is definitely something to be said for them kind of blending into the background," Lopez said.

• "Just sort of having this invincible thing. As often as you stay in a hotel, you just go about your day, you have a lot on your mind, you’re busy, you’re running out, you have to make your appointment, and these people come in and they make it all right for you and you don’t take notice. Most times we can’t tell what our maids look like from the hotels we stay in. It’s just how it is."

When asked if she gained a new appreciation for maids, Lopez said, "Absolutely. You have to when you do something like this. You always wind up learning."

Lopez even went into the specifics of her preparation for the role.

"It’s funny. It’s seems like I’ve lived in hotels for the last seven years, but there are instructional videotape for each hotel where they show you how to fold the corners and how the towels should be hung and where everything goes in the room and how the suites are. It’s sort of militant. It’s actually kind of interesting."

In 2019, Lopez was interviewed for GQ and spoke about being labeled a "diva" in the past.

Writer Jessica Pressler asked Lopez, "You have been through so much in your career, like there was that whole early-2000s 'She's a diva' thing. Now that we are in this period of sort of increased awareness of that, do you ever have moments where you look back and you're like, 'Wow, that was sexist or racist'—or otherwise, you know, f***** up?"

"For sure," Lopez said. "Because I was Latin, and I was a woman, and I was Puerto Rican, and they were not giving me the same pass that they gave everybody else at certain times."

She continued, "It's hard to remember specifics. I wish I could. But honestly, I don't like to harp on the negative or feel sorry for myself. You know, it, it just is what it is."

Lopez said that while the remarks affected her for a period of time, it also motivated her to "be better, all the time."

"Just be resilient. They'll give up," Lopez said.

Lopez hasn't completely avoided paying attention to public perception. In fact, while promoting her romantic comedy Marry Me, she was aware of the way her character's struggles with fame mirrored those of her own.

In an interview with PopSugar, Lopez talked about the similarity between her life and that of her character.

"This wasn't a role where I had to research what it was like to be a famous recording artist who does branding . . . I understand what all of that is already," Lopez said.

"I think the difficult part was kind of the meta part, which was the idea of showing what it's really like inside my bedroom when something goes wrong and you suffer a heartbreak like this in front of the whole world and the media kind of goes to town on you."

the view

Talk Show

Release Date

August 11, 1997

Cast

Whoopi Goldberg , Joy Behar

Seasons

26

Story By

Barbara Walters

Writers

Barbara Walters

Network

ABC

Streaming Service(s)

Hulu , Apple TV+