How George Lopez and Daughter Mayan Mended a Rift: ‘We Really Became a Family Again’

Way before George Lopez and his daughter, Mayan, started plotting their first television show together, George knew his only child had his genes.

“Mayan was funny as a kid,” the 61-year-old actor and comedian recalls of their early years in Los Angeles. At 12, Mayan began dreaming of performing on Chicago’s Second City improv stage, which she ultimately did in 2017.

“I inherited wonderful gifts from my dad, but I had to train and hone them,” says the now-26-year-old. “The biggest life lesson he taught me was to try to be the best comedian I can be.”

The two are now set to match wits professionally, producing and starring in the sitcom Lopez vs. Lopez, airing on NBC and streaming on Peacock in the fall. “She’s proven herself and her talent,” says George. “It’s not because of her last name. It’s because she’s done the work.”

But things weren’t always so copacetic between the famous dad and his comedy-loving daughter.

On Lopez vs. Lopez, George and Mayan play an estranged father and daughter putting a painful past behind them and reconnecting in fresh new ways. Though fictional, the comedy mines some of their own tense history.

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“We spent years when we didn’t talk,” admits George.

Ultimately, it was the COVID lockdown that brought them together again.

“My dad is immunocompromised,” explains Mayan. In 2005 George received a kidney from his wife, Ann — Mayan’s mom — but the two ended their marriage in 2011. A tough decade followed.

“We all love each other, but we have our own dysfunction like any family after a divorce,” Mayan says.

Quarantine provided an unexpected opportunity for the three to check in on one another, share meals and laugh together. They even made TikToks as a family (which becomes a funny plotline in Lopez v. Lopez). Making the videos was “as uncomfortable as it looks,” cracks George.

“We really became a family again,” says Mayan, from establishing healthy boundaries to being able to talk openly with one another.

“It’s so crazy to think that really two years ago, we weren’t really speaking regularly, if at all,” she continues. “With the show, I’m having similar conversations, hard conversations that I’ve had with him or struggled to have with him — and now we’re doing it on TV for millions of people to see. But what’s so wonderful is that both of us have been through a lot of pain, but the love has always brought us together.”

With their new sitcom now in production, George says his hopes remain simple: “My dream collaboration with Mayan is to spend the rest of my life around her.”

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