LO POINT
Jennifer Lopez says she felt like dying after Ben Affleck split
JENNIFER Lopez says she felt she was going to die when she split from Hollywood star Ben Affleck in 2004.
And the 53-year-old singer revealed it put her into a 18-year spiral where she “just couldn’t get it right”.
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Jen and Ben, now 50, were known collectively to fans as Bennifer after they got together in 2002.
They planned to marry, but separated after 18 months, later blaming the pressure of the media circus around the relationship.
The pair finally tied the knot this year having rekindled their relationship following nearly two decades apart.
But J-Lo said the painful break-up left her unable to sing the songs she had written for Ben on her 2002 album This Is Me…Then.
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She told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1: “I wouldn’t even perform these records. 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.”
I’m Glad, the third single off the album, was about finding romance with Ben.
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J-Lo sang: “I’m glad when you walk you hold my hand/I’m happy that you know how to be a man/I’m glad that you came into my life.” Another gushing track was called Dear Ben.
He was even in her video for Jenny from the Block.
But months after recording the album, their romance was over.
Jen said: “When me and Ben got back together, 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 that I had to put away to move on and survive. It was a survival tactic, for sure.”
The pair met in 2002 on the set of 2003 film Gigli.
Jen said: “As we worked together we became such good friends. We realised that we were crazy about each other.
“I found myself thinking about him after the movie was over — and having to take care of my own business because I was coming out of a relationship.
“But it’s like you just knew it. It’s just like, ‘This is the person I want to be with’. And that happened over a period of months.”
The couple tied the knot twice this summer, first in Las Vegas in July and then in August at Ben’s home in Georgia in front of friends and family. Jen said: “We had to live these separate paths and we did other beautiful things.
“But once we got whole enough and loved ourselves enough and could stand on our own two feet, as the universe would have it, we were brought into each other’s lives again.
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“It has the most would-never-happen-in-Hollywood ending.”
- Jennifer Lopez's full interview with Zane Lowe is available to stream on Apple Music 1 now.
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