Jennifer Lopez Gets Very Honest About First Breakup With Ben Affleck
Jennifer Lopez is reflecting on a painful time from her past.
The 53-year-old “Let’s Get Loud” superstar spoke out in a new interview, and addressed her split from Ben Affleck two decades ago, as well as their eventual reconciliation and rekindled romance.
During a conversation with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1, she addressed the album she made at that time, and the one she’s releasing now.
“That album, This Is Me… Then, really captured a time where I fell in love with the love of my life. And I just, it’s all right there on the record,” she said.
“Every single song we wrote, me writing ‘Dear Ben,’ it was such a special moment in time to have captured.”
She added that her now-husband “loves” This Is Me… Then.
“He loves that album. He loves that music. He knows all of the words. He also was with me while I was creating it…he’s my biggest fan, which is awesome.”
The two were originally engaged from 2002 to 2004.
“I wouldn’t even perform these records. It was so painful after we broke up,” she admitted.
“Once we called off that wedding 20 years ago, it was the biggest heartbreak of my life, and I honestly felt like I was going to die.”
“So I didn’t make music in that way that I did in 2002 until now…it set me on a spiral for the next 18 years where I just couldn’t get it right. But now, 20 years later, it does have a happy ending. It has the most, would never happen in Hollywood ending.”
She said that after rekindling, “the same thing happened where I felt so inspired and so overtaken with emotion that [the music] was just pouring out of me.”
“True love does exist and some things do last forever. And that’s real. I want to put that message out to the world. That does take a lot of vulnerability, but I couldn’t stop myself. Parts of it scare me and I think parts of it scare Ben too. He’s like, ‘Do you really want to say all this stuff?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know how else to do it, baby.’”
“Now we know. There is no questions and there is no, ‘Well, let’s see how this goes.’ It’s like, ‘No, it’s me and you, that’s it. All the way, ’til the end,’” she says.
Jennifer also revealed how their second relationship began.