Why George Lopez says he would be “nothing” without Sandra Bullock

George Lopez has a special place in his heart for his girlfriend Sandra Bullock.

The 63-year-old comedian spoke candidly about how the actress “changed the direction of my life” during an appearance on Thursday’s edition of iHeartRadio’s Politics with Gavin Newsom, Marshawn Lynch and Doug Hendrickson Podcasts.

Lopez said Bullock, 60, wanted to go to a comedy club where he performed in the mid- to late '90s until he begged the manager not to let her go because he “drank a lot” and didn't want her to “see him like that.”

“I didn't even know her,” he recalled. “And I got down on my knees in that damn green room and said, 'Please, please don't let her.'”

The two paths crossed about a year and a half later, when the actress, who later became executive producer of his successful television show, George Lopez, was looking for new talent.

“I had already gotten a little bit ready, and then she saw me and said, 'Come to my office.' And we sat there for about three hours,” Lopez recalls, adding, “Nobody believed in me.”

The George Lopez The show premiered soon after in 2002 and ran for six seasons until 2007.

“She changed my life, and you know, the life of everyone in my family, for no other reason than that she just thought I was funny,” Lopez said.

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After confirming that Bullock served as an executive producer, he added, “She did the show, and she did the show a couple of times and was very, I mean, she came to the records and stuff like that, and I mean, I would be nothing without her.”

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Lopez expressed similar sentiments in a 2006 interview with PEOPLE, saying, “From the moment Sandy and I first met, she was always a person of her word and embraced me and my family.”