“Why Is Everyone Talking About That Swimmer”: Jennifer Lopez Questioned Michael Phelps’ Career After Being Ignored for Him in 2008

Michael Phelps’ 2008 Beijing medal haul was a legendary victory, cemented in Olympic history. He not only set 7 world records in the Games but also broke Mark Spitz’s 36-year record for most gold medals in a single Olympics. It established Phelps as the greatest swimmer of all time.

So it can’t come as a surprise that Phelps’ dominating victory was hailed as the biggest achievement in any sport that year. Where most would agree that 2008 was the swimming legend’s year, American singer Jennifer Lopez thought otherwise.

Jennifer Lopez didn’t understand Phelps’ popularity

In August 2018, insanely popular singer-actor Jennifer Lopez was gearing up for the 22nd Annual Malibu Triathlon. Her training came in the wake of her recently giving birth to twins, Emme and Max, in March. No doubt, her grit, and determination were commendable. 

But Michael Phelps’ run at Beijing overshadowed her accomplishments and Lopez didn’t understand how that was possible. After a TV interview on ‘Good Morning America’, a source overheard the pop star talking about how “she couldn’t understand why everyone is talking about that swimmer.”

According to the source, “She couldn’t come up with (eight-time gold-medal winner Michael) Phelps’ name, and then she yammered on about how she was the one training for a triathlon just six months after giving birth, and how that was the big story right now, not ‘the swimmer.’ ”

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The singer donated the money raised from her race to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. While it is unfortunate Michael Phelps’ legendary gold haul dimmed Jennifer Lopez’s athletic prowess, it is also entirely understandable.

Michael Phelps: a one-in-a-million athlete

Before stepping into the Olympic pool in 2008, Michael Phelps had already collected eight medals, six of them gold, in Athens. The record-breaking teenager from the 2004 Games became an indomitable force within four years. 

Phelps broke his own records and set new ones, winning 7 of his 8 races in world record times. In that remaining event, too, he set an Olympic record. In the seventh of his races, the men’s 100-meter butterfly, Phelps won by a margin of 0.01 seconds.

“As soon as I hit the wall, I saw I had won. I looked up and saw it was by one one-hundredth. And you know that’s where the emotion came out,” he told CNN. “You know, that’s where the big splash in the water, like the big roar. I mean, you could tell that I was pretty intense after that race.”

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The 23-year-old swimmer had already established himself as the greatest Olympic athlete ever. After Beijing, Phelps competed in two more Olympic cycles, racking up his medal tally to an unreachable 28, of which 23 are gold.