In a recent interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Jennifer Lopez has revealed what it has been like rekindling her relationship with Ben Affleck, and how it has inspired her new album.
“Twenty years ago, I fell in love with the love of my life,” Lopez said. “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.”
Lopez released This Is Me..Then in 2002, a personal album about her relationship with Ben Affleck. In 2004, the couple called off their engagement, and Lopez says the breakup was one of the most painful experiences of her life.
“It was so painful after we broke up. Once we called off that wedding 20 years ago, I was — it was the biggest heartbreak of my life. I honestly felt like I was going to die,” Lopez recalled. “It sent me on a spiral for the next 18 years where I just couldn’t get it right. Couldn’t get it right.”
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Lopez and Affleck rekindled their relationship in early 2021, and officially tied the knot in July this year. Now, the singer is set to release a follow up to her 2002 album, titled This Is Me…Now.
“Now, 20 years 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 that because nobody would believe it’ ending,” gushed the singer.
Lopez admits that the intense media scrutiny about their relationship played a role in their breakup.
“That was part of what destroyed us was the outside energy that was coming at us. And we loved each other, it was hard. It felt, at times, unfair, but neither 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 the weirdest way, that it motivated both of us to then become and do the things that we wound up doing, which is kind of go into hyper-gear,” she said, noting they had “to do it separately.” He went into hyper-gear and I went into hyper-gear. But not together. We had to do it separately… It fuelled us in a weird way that we felt we had to prove ourselves again.”
Speaking about This Is Me…Now, Lopez says the album will be another personal exploration into their love story.
“We captured me at this moment in time when I was reunited with the love of my life and we decided we were going to be together forever. The whole message of the album then is this love exists. This is a real love. Now I think what the message of the album is very much if you were wondering if you have, like me at times, lost hope, almost given up, don’t. Because true love does exist and some things do last forever and that’s real,” Lopez shared.
This Is Me…Now will be released in 2023.
