Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck attend a special screening of ‘Marry Me’ at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 8, 2022. Picture: Reuters/Mario Anzuoni
Jennifer Lopez has opened up about her relationship with Ben Affleck and how the annulment of their first engagement in 2004 “spiraled” for 18 years.
The singer-actress looked back on their split as she spoke about the inspirations behind her 2002 album This Is Me… Then and its follow-up This Is Me… Now. This was during an interview with radio DJ Zane Lowe for Apple Music, as seen on his YouTube channel on Tuesday, November 29.
“‘This Is Me… Then’ really captured a moment in time when I fell in love with the love of my life,” she said. “It’s all right there on the record and I didn’t even realize what was going on or what I was doing.”
Because the songs reflected her then-relationship with Affleck, Lopez admitted that she reached a point where she didn’t want to sing any of those songs after their breakup.
“Once I called off the wedding 20 years ago, it was the worst pain of my life and I honestly felt like I was going to die,” she told Lowe. “It sent me into a spiral for the next 18 years where I couldn’t get it right.”
Lopez credits her avoidance of performing “This Is Me…Then” songs at the time as her “survival tactic” to deal with the pain.
“But now, 20 years later, it has a happy ending. It has the greatest ending that would never happen in Hollywood,” she said, referring to her rekindled romance with Affleck, which is the highlight of her upcoming album.
“When he came back into my life, the same thing happened, when I felt so inspired and so overcome with emotion that it just poured out of me,” she added. “When I feel good, I write music. And we wrote music and went into the studio in May, I think by August, when we got married, it was over.”
The rekindling of romance between Lopez and Affleck was confirmed to the public in June 2021 after paparazzi photos of them kissing were published by New York Post. In April 2022, Lopez went public with their engagement.
The couple, nicknamed ‘Bennifer’, then obtained a marriage license in Las Vegas in July before re-marrying in a lavish ceremony in August.
Lopez announced the 2023 release of “This Is Me… Now.” The announcement came days after she deleted her Instagram page, which some music watchers believed might have something to do with her album release. However, no explanation has been given by her camp till now. EDV
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