Jennifer Lopez acknowledged her and Ben Affleck’s divorce in a new interview.
“I think my whole life I’ve just been trying to say I’m good enough, until where I am now, when I know. I’m giving myself credit. I’m telling that little girl that grew up in the Bronx, ‘You’ve done really good for yourself.’ I didn’t do that for so many years,” Lopez, 55, told Nikki Glaser in a conversation for Interview magazine published on Wednesday, October 9. “And now I think, with everything that’s happened in my life and in my relationships and even in my career, it’s like, give yourself a bit of comfort and love. We’ve been through a lot of things that nobody knows about, and you’ve persevered and you refuse to give up and to let it get you down.”
She added: “There’s something to be said for that because things can really change your life in a way that you do want to give up and say, “F— this, this is too hard, I don’t want to do this anymore.” But I’m not there. I refuse to not give myself everything that little girl deserves.”
Lopez noted that being a mother of 16-year-old twins Max and Emme, whom she shares with her ex-husband Marc Anthony, and recent projects such as the film Unstoppable helped her self-esteem.
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“With This Is Me … Now and the project you mentioned earlier, I felt like, whoa, I got here. I’m good,” she stated. “I did all the work and look where I am, and then it was like my whole f—ing world exploded.”
After months of split speculation, Us Weekly confirmed that Lopez filed for divorce from Affleck, 52, on August 20 after two years of marriage. She listed the pair’s date of separation as April 26 and cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for their separation. Lopez also requested to drop “Affleck” from her last name and restore her legal name to Jennifer Lynn Lopez.
Lopez filed her divorce docs on the anniversary of her and Affleck’s second wedding ceremony. The estranged spouses tied the knot in front of friends and family in Georgia in August 2022 after secretly getting married in Las Vegas one month prior.
“Sometimes, Nikki, it’s going to work out great. And sometimes it won’t. And that’s f—ing OK, too,” she told Glaser, 40, of her personal and professional ups and downs. “I was thinking about this time in my life, and I’m like, ‘That’s not what I thought it was going to turn out like.’ And then I thought, ‘No, this is exactly where I needed to be, to lead me to where I want to go.’”
The Grammy nominee said she’s “excited” by the idea of being on her own, stating, “Yes, I’m not looking for anybody, because everything that I’ve done over the past 25, 30 years, being in these different challenging situations, what can I f—ing do when it’s just me flying on my own — What if I’m just free?”
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In the interview, Lopez said “there’s no new bar” when it comes to eventually looking for new romantic partners. “For people who are romantics and love being in relationships and want to grow old with somebody, we think, “’ have to have that to be whole and happy.’ And you don’t,” she said before joking, “It only took 30 years.”
Lopez was previously married to Ojani Noa from 1997 to 1998, Cris Judd from 2001 to 2003 and Anthony, 56, from 2004 to 2014. She and Affleck dated for two years before calling it quits in 2004 and rekindled their relationship in 2021.
The exes were spotted grabbing lunch with their children in Los Angeles last month, after which a source exclusively told Us that their divorce proceedings were “still going forward” despite the reunion. (Affleck shares three children with his ex-wife Jennifer Garner.)
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“When they’re together as a family and see the kids together, it reminds them of how good they are as a team and what’s important,” the insider shared, noting the pair have been struggling with “lingering doubts” and “hesitation” about the divorce.
A second source added: “They both know they will be in each other’s lives because of the kids and are remaining friendly. But the divorce is still happening.”
