The road to becoming Mrs. Affleck has been long for Jennifer Lopez. Reuniting and marrying Ben Affleck was a Hollywood ending few could have imagined. Their reunion was definitionally serendipitous, considering the pair called off their first engagement in 2004. While Lopez appeared to move in the years following her breakup with Affleck, there was more going on beneath the surface. The Marry Me star explained why her 2004 spilt from her now-husband was her biggest heartbreak.
The couple’s public love story served as the inspiration for her 2002 album This is Me… Then. With the album celebrating its 20th anniversary, Lopez took the time to look back at the first iteration of Bennifer with Apple Music. The multihyphenate spoke about how the power couple’s relationship helped her to craft the musical body of work.
Twenty years ago, I fell in love with the love of my life. I was working on an album, and it was called This Is Me … Then. It was all about capturing that moment in time. Now, the most amazing, incredible, unbelievable thing has happened. The reason we’re here is because I want to capture this moment in time because it is even better than the first time.
The 2002 album was released at the height of Bennifer-mania when the couple’s personal and professional lives started to intertwine. One of the album’s biggest singles, “Jenny from the Block,” served as the apex of the star’s whirlwind romance with Lopez and Affleck flaunting their relationship in the iconic music video. The actor-director even inspired songs like “Dear Ben,” “Baby, I Love U,” and “I’m Glad,” with the latter becoming a single. Lopez was poised to tour for the album before the couple’s gut-wrenching breakup put that to a halt.
While the album has remained a favorite amongst her fans, Lopez has been reluctant to perform certain songs live. The triple threat got candid about why she’s only performed the big singles live and nothing else since the album’s release. She explained how painful it was to sing and perform the material following the couple’s 2004 split.
Dude, I wouldn’t even perform these records. It was so painful after we broke up. Once we called off that wedding 20 years ago, it was the biggest heartbreak of my life. I honestly felt like I was going to die. It sent me on a spiral for the next 18 years where I just couldn’t get it right.
Seeing the past two decades as a “spiral” says a lot. Of course, between the breakup and reunion, Lopez was in a few relationships, including her ten-year marriage to singer Marc Anthony and a three-year relationship with baseball icon Alex Rodriguez. Affleck was no slouch either in the relationship department, being married to Jennifer Garner from 2005 to 2018 (whose relationship with Lopez has evolved since their couple's reunion) and having a short-lived relationship with Deep Water co-star Ana de Armas from 2020 to 2021.
Lopez admitted Affleck knows the album front to back, including the lyrics. During the album’s creation, she would let the Oscar winner hear demos and completed tracks during their relationship. Upon getting back together, the Way Back star fell in line with her fans as he asked his now-wife why she never performed the full album. JLo gave some insight into how their conversation went:
It’s funny because when me and Ben got back together, he was like, ‘You never performed the songs. You never did. I’m glad.’ … I was like, ‘You’re right. It was painful.’ It was a part of me then that I had to put away to move on and survive. It was a survival tactic, for sure.
Since rekindling their romance, Lopez and Affleck have remained mum about their relationship this time around, giving viewers only small crumbs. They got a peek into the couple’s Vegas nuptials before their private extravagant ceremony earlier this year. Lopez recently shared some sweet pics from their first Thanksgiving as a married couple. Despite enjoying wedded bliss, the Hollywood star doesn’t recommend retrying an old love as people can outgrow each other. Things worked out for the newlyweds as their renewed love inspired the multihyphenate to create her latest album, This is Me… Now, which will be released in 2023.
You can look back at Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s relationship timeline. You can follow that up by viewing their relationship in pictures.
