Jennifer Lopez is setting the record straight. During her Wednesday (Feb. 14) interview with Zane Lowe for the debut of her This Is Me … Now Radio on Apple Music, the 54-year-old superstar clarified when she and her now-husband Ben Affleck actually called it quits back in 2004 — and no, it wasn’t when they called off their wedding.
“We didn’t break up right at that moment,” Lopez recalled of ending her engagement with the Gone Girl actor about 20 years ago. “It happened over the series of the next few months.”
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“I knew in my heart that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life — I knew that,” she continued. “But it didn’t feel like we were going to make it. And so, it scared me. It was very hard, it was a very sad moment of letting go of somebody that you truly love because you just can’t figure it out. You just don’t have the capacity and the ability at that moment, emotionally, to figure it out. We just weren’t mature enough in that way.”
The Marry Me star first met Affleck in 2001 on the set of their movie Gigli. They revealed their engagement in 2002 before delaying their wedding in 2003, after which they called off their nuptials altogether in early 2004.
Lopez went on to marry Marc Anthony later that year, and they welcomed two kids before separating in 2011. Affleck wed Jennifer Garner in 2005, and the pair had three kids before splitting in 2015.
“We went, and we both tried and found other people, and had beautiful children, and had other families, and then even had other relationships after that,” Lopez reflected to Lowe. “I was like, ‘You know what? I’m totally good on my own. I’m chill, I love my life, I have this amazing career that I’ve built for myself, I have these amazing children.’ That’s when he showed back up.”
“And funnily enough, he said he had had the same type of experience,” added the “I’m Real” singer. “And that’s kind of how it went down.”
Lopez’s highly anticipated album This Is Me … Now will arrive Friday (Feb. 16). A musical film in support of the new album, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story, will also drop on the 16th via Amazon’s Prime Video, followed by a documentary about the making of the record Feb. 27.
Watch her interview above.
