Jennifer Lopez reckons American Idol helped her "grow as an artist"

Jennifer Lopez has claimed that sitting next to Steven Tyler and giving advice to strangers for two years has helped her — wait for it — "grow as an artist".

Talking to MTV about her 'stint' on American Idol and why she's decided to leave, she said: "Whenever it's things like that, where you're working with other people, like the audience, or even another artist, like we did with the con­test­ants on the show, you learn, you grow."

"Whatever I'd tell them, it was funny [AIN'T IT FUNNY SURELY??], it was like telling myself," she continued. "And I always feel like whenever I was telling them this over the past two years of doing 'Idol,' that it was helping me grow as an artist as well."

So inspir­a­tional. But it didn't stop there. "[America Idol] was a great exper­i­ence; it was a great exper­i­ence to sit there and do that for a while, and I honestly feel like it was put in my life for a reason, to be part of my journey and part of my growth, because it def­in­itely did that," she went on.

"But as much as I love the show, this is what I do. This is what I do. And that was fun and it was great, but this is what I do."

By "this is what I do" we think she means singing and dancing as opposed to giving long-winded answers to questions in an interview scenario.

J‑Lo's also put a teaser thing for her new video for 'Goin' In' online too and you can see that below.