Jennifer Lopez said her and Ben Affleck’s breakup 20 years ago was so”painful” she thought she’d “die.” In a new interview, the singer talked abouther latest Affleck-inspired album and what the actor-director said had to sayabout some seemingly personal lyrics.
Lopez, 53, spoke to Apple Music’s Zane Lowe about her forthcoming album _ThisIs Me …Now_a follow-up to her hit 2002 project _This Is Me …Then. _
“Twenty years ago, I fell in love with the love of my life,” Lopez explained.”Now, the most amazing, incredible, unbelievable thing has happened… thereason we’re here is because I want to capture this moment in time because itis even better than the first time.”
Affleck and Lopez tied the knot (twice!) over the summer after rekindlingtheir relationship. The Gigli co-stars initially called off their engagementin 2004.
“It was so painful after we broke up. Once we called off that wedding 20 yearsago, I was — it was the biggest heartbreak of my life. I honestly felt like Iwas going to die,” Lopez recalled. “It sent me on a spiral for the next 18years where I just couldn’t get it right. Couldn’t get it right. But now, 20years later, it does have a happy ending. It has the most would-never -happen-in-Hollywood ending. ‘That would never happen. We’re not going to write thatbecause nobody would believe it’ ending.”
Lopez said that when she and Affleck got back together, he called her out fornot performing songs that were about him on This Is Me …Then.
“I was like, ‘You’re right. It was painful.’ It was a part of me then that Ihad to put away to move on and survive. It was a survival tactic, for sure,”Lopez recalled. (By the way, she said Affleck “knows all of the words” tosongs on that album.)
” This Is Me …Then really captured a moment in time where I fell in lovewith the love of my life. It’s all right there on the record. I didn’t evenrealize what was happening and what I was doing,” Lopez remembered. “Everysingle song that we wrote there, me writing ‘Dear Ben,’ it was such a specialmoment in time to have captured.”
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Lopez said the media frenzy surrounding their relationship “destroyed us” allthose years ago.
“That was part of what destroyed us was the outside energy that was coming atus. And we loved each other, it was hard. It felt, at times, unfair, butneither one of us is that person to be like, woe is me. So we were like,’Well, we just got to dust it off and keep it moving.’ And I think, in theweirdest way, that it motivated both of us to then become and do the thingsthat we wound up doing, which is kind of go into hyper-gear,” she said, notingthey had “to do it separately .” He went into hyper gear and I went into hypergear. But not together. We had to do it separately… It fueled us in a weirdway that we felt we had to prove ourselves again.”
Lopez hinted at that This Is Me …Now will feature similarly personal lyricsas its predecessor.
“We captured me at this moment in time when I was reunited with the love of mylife and we decided we were going to be together forever. The whole message ofthe album then is this love exists. This is a real love. Now I think what themessage of the album is very much if you were wondering if you have, like meat times, lost hope, almost given up, don’t. Because true love does exist andsome things do last forever and that’s real,” the Mary Me star shared.
“I want to put that message out into the world and that does take a lot ofvulnerability. But I couldn’t stop myself and some parts of it scare me. And Ithink parts of it scare Ben too. He’s like, ‘Oh , do you really want to sayall this stuff?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t know how else to do it, baby,'” Lopezteased.
This Is Me …Now will be released in 2023.
MORE: Jennifer Lopez says private video of her wedding performance for BenAffleck was ‘stolen’