'I felt like I was going to die': Jennifer Lopez recalls pain of ending first engagement with Ben Affleck
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Jennifer Lopez described breaking off her engagement to Ben Affleck as the "biggest heartbreak" of her life. The New York native, 53, sat down for a candid conversation with Apple Music's Zane Lowe on Friday, November 25 after unveiling her ninth studio album, 'This Is Me... Now,' which is an updated play on her 2002 release, 'This Is Me… Then.' Lopez talked about her rekindled romance with the 'Deep Water' actor as she recalled the sorrow she suffered after their first engagement ended in 2004.
The path to marriage for Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck was not simple. J Lo told host Zane Lowe, "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, as per reports from Page Six.
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She continued, “It sent me on a spiral for the next 18 years where I just couldn’t get it right. But now, 20 years later, it does have a happy ending. It has the most ‘would never happen in Hollywood’ ending.” "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 “Let’s Get Loud” singer explained. “The whole message of the album is, "This love exists. This is real love.'”
The actress and the Argo filmmaker, 50, were engaged from 2002 to 2004 but called off their wedding in 2003 owing to increased media scrutiny. This is Me... The album was released in 2002 and included a song dedicated to Affleck named "Dear Ben," however the songs had a different impact on Lopez after the two splits. “Dude, I wouldn’t even perform these records,” she told Lowe. “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," as per reported by Aol.
“Now I think what the message of [the album] is — if you have, like me at times, lost hope, almost given up, don’t,” Lopez told Lowe. “True love does exist and some things do last forever and that’s real. I want to put that message out into the world and that does take a lot of vulnerability.”