Jennifer Lopez Shares How Her ‘Biggest Heartbreak’ (Ben Affleck, Of Course) Impacted Her Career
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In a candid new interview with Jennifer Lopez, the “If You Had My Love” hitmaker opened up on how the biggest heartbreak of her life led to a happy ending in her love story with husband Ben Affleck.
20 years ago, when Lopez was deeply in love with Affleck, she penned her landmark album This Is Me…Then, which was inspired by the “Pearl Harbor” movies star- especially the track “I’m Glad”- however, a year after its release she and Affleck, whom she called the “love of my life,” broke off their engagement.
“I wouldn’t even perform these records. It was so painful after we broke up,” Lopez told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. “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.
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“It sent me on a spiral for the next 18 years where I just couldn’t get it right,” she admitted. “But now, 20 years later, it does have a happy ending. It has the most would-never-happen-in-
The “Marry Me” star shared that when she and Affleck got back together in 2021, he was like “‘You never performed the songs. You never did ‘I’m Glad’. You never did this. You never did that.’ 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.”
Now that Lopez and Affleck are older, she said it was “much more clear” that they were meant to be together.
Despite having felt the same way towards each other back then, Lopez said, “Now we know. And there is no questions and there is no kind of like, ‘Well, let’s see how this goes.’ Like, ‘Nope, it’s me and you. That’s it. All the way, till the end. That’s it. It’s going to be us.’”
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The “Waiting for Tonight” singer added that when she and her hubby initially reunited they immediately realized that the love was still there and didn’t want to waste any more time.
“We had our kids and we had to tread lightly and carefully so they could come along with us…Because they didn’t live those years before,” Lopez explained. “And they’re like, ‘Wow, they’ve known each other forever.’ And that’s it. We did know each other forever.
“We had to live these separate paths and we did other beautiful things and we had these amazing children. But when we came back together,” she continued, “and… Once we got whole enough and complete enough and loved ourselves enough and could stand on our own two feet really completely, as the universe would have it, we were brought into each other’s lives again.
“It was a crack in the clouds and that song came through and it was like, ‘Boom, that’s it.’ And we were both very sure.”
Listen to my convo with @zanelowe LIVE right now on @applemusic https://t.co/RRxCxFzuCf #ThisIsMeNow #20yearsofTHISISMETHEN pic.twitter.com/zdj0d3RUG0
— jlo (@JLo) November 28, 2022
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While Lopez’s rekindled romance with Affleck brought her true love and happiness, it also gave the singer her “biggest fan.”
“He loves that album. He loves that music,” she said of Affleck’s admiration for This Is Me…Then. “He knows all of the words.”
“He’s my biggest fan, which is awesome, and supporter. When he came back into my life again, the same thing happened where I felt so inspired and so overtaken with emotion that it was just pouring out of me,” she told Lowe, referring to how her and Affleck’s journey of love informed her forthcoming new album This Is Me…Now.
