Jessica Biel has a family of “chosen sisters” around her — and husband Justin Timberlake is included.
“I’m really lucky, because I have amazing groups of women kind of scattered throughout the country that have really been my rocks as I’ve grown up,” Biel, 43, shared during her In Style cover interview, published on Monday, May 19. “I would also consider my husband one of my chosen sisters. He’s also my best friend.”
She added: “All of them together have gotten me through my life. I don’t know how I would have survived life without them.”
Timberlake previously shared a similar sentiment about his wife, calling her “the single-handedly most significant person in my life,” during an interview in 2011. Biel married Timberlake the following year. Throughout their marriage, the couple have welcomed two kids: Silas, 10, and Phineas, 4.
“It really takes a village to raise any kid, let alone in a wild business like this where parents are traveling for long times for work,” Biel said elsewhere in the interview, admitting that “sometimes we do a good job” alternating between staying at home with their kids and working.
“We try to have one of us working full time, only one,” Biel said of her and Timberlake. “It doesn’t always happen, because the opportunities arise, and the timing is what it is. You just have to take advantage of it.”
Biel is set to star in the upcoming movie Matchbox, an opportunity that didn’t come at a great time. While she was on set, Timberlake was in the middle of his Forget Tomorrow World Tour.
“We had our incredible [travel] teachers and our incredible nanny, and our family helped out,” Biel said. “The kids are good, we’re good, it’s all positive; it’s just when you’re in the middle of it, you’re like, ‘What am I doing?’”
Biel said it’s “so hard” being a working mom, sharing the best advice she received which came from producing partner Michelle Purple.
“I don’t do it very well all the time,” she declared. “She said one thing to me a long time ago. She goes, ‘Listen, all you can do is: When you’re working, you’re 100-percent working, and when you’re home, you’re 100-percent home. Do not take a work call when you’re at home with the kids. If you do it half-ass, you’re not good at anything.’ That was a good piece of advice.”
Biel added: “I do feel like I’m often at the bottom of the totem pole, even though my husband is the best at trying to always help encourage me to take time for myself.”
