She continued, “He went on to start directing, win his Oscar, do his second Oscar, do his thing where people had written him off in a way. The same thing with me. It was just like people were like, “Her music career’s over. She’s this, she’s that.” You know what I mean? I wasn’t getting movies. I had to power my way back. I had to work and work. I got divorced and I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll do the reality show. I’ll do the television show. I’ll do the single. I’ll do this.’ And it was just, ‘Okay, I’m going to go on tour for the first time.’ All these things with two babies. It fueled us in a weird way that we felt we had to prove ourselves again.”
On falling back in love with Affleck:
Jennifer Lopez: ” I think now that we’re older, we realize, it’s much more clear, because even in Then when we felt that way, now we know. Now, we know. And there is no questions and there is no kind of like, ‘Well, let’s see how this goes.’ Like, ‘Nope, it’s me and you. That’s it. All the way, till the end. That’s it. It’s going to be us.’
Zane Lowe: “Was it quick? When you came together again and realized that the love was still…”
JL: “Immediate? That was immediate.”
ZL: “We’re not wasting any more time.”
JL: “We’re not, we know. We had our kids and we had to tread lightly and carefully so they could come along with us…Because they didn’t live those years before. And they’re like, ‘Wow, they’ve known each other forever.’ And that’s it. We did know each other forever, and we had to live these separate paths and we did other beautiful things and we had these amazing children. But when we came back together and the universe and God and, as it would have it… Once we got whole enough and complete enough and loved ourselves enough and could stand on our own two feet really completely, as the universe would have it, we were brought into each other’s lives again. And it was a crack in the clouds and that song came through and it was like, ‘Boom, that’s it.’ And we were both very sure.”
Apple Music
Why Jennifer Lopez stopped performing songs from This Is Me…Then:
“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. But 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. It’s funny because 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 then that I had to put away to move on and survive. It was a survival tactic, for sure.”
On This Is Me…Now:
“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. I want to put that message out into the world and that does take a lot of vulnerability. But I couldn’t stop myself and some parts of it scare me. And I think parts of it scare Ben too. He’s like, ‘Oh, do you really want to say all this stuff?’And I’m like, ‘I don’t know how else to do it, baby.’”
Ben Affleck is her biggest fan.
“He loves that album. He loves that music. He knows all of the words. You know what I mean? It’s crazy. He also was with me while I was creating it. You know what it is to make an album. You’re listening to the demos in the car. You’re listening to the mixes. ‘I wrote this today. What do you think of this?’ It was that over and over again for two years while we were together, two-and-a-half years that we were together. He knows it so well and he loves it so much. He’s my biggest fan, which is awesome, and supporter. When he came back into my life again, the same thing happened where I felt so inspired and so overtaken with emotion that it was just pouring out of me.”
