Alex Rodriguez says his and Jennifer Lopez’s blended family is “the most important thing” in his life.

Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez

Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez

The 45-year-old former New York Yankees baseball star is father to two children – Natasha, 16, and Ella, 12, whom he has with ex-wife Cynthia Scurtis – and will soon be the step-father of his fiancée Jennifer’s 12-year-old twins Emme and Max, six, whom she has from her marriage to Marc Anthony.

And Alex has now said he’s proud of himself and Jennifer for successfully merging their two families together, because being a “great father” has always been a goal of his, ever since his own father walked out on his family.

He explained: "My father left me when I was 10 years old and I still have a hole in my heart because he left at that age. It was around the age of 11 that I made a promise to myself that I was going to be a great father whenever that moment came. That is by far the most important thing in my life, my two beautiful girls, and now our four kids.”

Whilst Alex is on cloud nine in his new life with Jennifer, he also heaped praise on his former spouse Cynthia, as he called her a “great mother” and opened up on the ingenious way they got their kids to see their new romances in a positive light.

He added: "We positioned what could be perceived as a negative into a positive, by saying to the girls, look, now you don't have one house, you have two houses. You don't have two parents, you have four parents. Lucky you, the more the merrier."

Alex admitted being in a blended family "takes some navigating" but said that by putting his daughters first, he finds himself to be a "more compassionate, more considerate" person.

Speaking on the ‘Raising the Bar’ podcast, he said: "When I want to do things at Christmas with the girls, I may start asking for, not permission, but proactively in July I may be talking about Christmas, versus if I was in a different state of mind, I would drop it December 15 and say, 'Hey, Cynthia, can I have the kids?'

“So it's been a really, really nice experience for us. I'm very friendly with [Cynthia's husband] Angel, he's wonderful with my girls. I think having four good people at the table, well, three good people and me."

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