Jennifer Lopez Reveals What Rekindled Her Romance with Ben Affleck

Jennifer Lopez is spilling on how she got back together with Ben Affleck after so many years.

The couple were engaged from 2002 to 2004, but split, only to reconnect in 2021 and get married in 2022. Lopez opened up in the December issue of Vogue about how they rekindled their romance.

It turns out that Ben reached out to J.Lo in early 2021, after he gave a kind comment about her to a magazine.

While she didn’t name the magazine, it is known that in the May 2021 issue InStyle, Ben offered some flattering quotes about his ex.

He said at the time, “I thought I had a good work ethic, but I was completely humbled and blown away by what she was committed to doing day in and day out, the seriousness in which she took her work, the quiet and dedicated way she went about accomplishing her goals, and then how she would go back and redouble her efforts.”

Affleck went on, “She remains, to this day, the hardest-working person I’ve come across in this business. She has great talent, but she has also worked very hard for her success, and I’m so happy for her that she seems, at long last, to be getting the credit she deserves.”

He added, “Where are you keeping the fountain of youth? Why do you look the same as you did in 2003 and it kind of looks like I’m in my 40s… at best?”

Ben reached out to tip her off about the story, which was just after Jennifer and her fiancé at the time Alex Rodriguez split up.

In May 2021, Ben and Jennifer were spotted together for the first time. She revealed, “Obviously, we weren’t trying to go out in public. But I never shied away from the fact that for me, I always felt like there was a real love there, a true love there. People in my life know that he was a very, very special person in my life. When we reconnected, those feelings for me were still very real.”

The star went on, “I don’t know that I recommend this for everybody. Sometimes you outgrow each other, or you just grow differently. The two of us, we lost each other and found each other. Not to discredit anything in between that happened, because all those things were real too. All we’ve ever wanted was to kind of come to a place of peace in our lives where we really felt that type of love that you feel when you’re very young and wonder if you can have that again. Does it exist? Is it real? All those questions that I think everyone has. You go through all these relationships, and you’re searching and you’re connecting and you’re disconnecting with people, and you’re like, God, is this just what life is? Like a carousel, roller coaster, carnival ride? And then it settles. But the journey to that is the mystery for everybody.”

Lopez and Affleck went on to legally tie the knot in Las Vegas in July, before celebrating with a big wedding Georgia in August.

Jen opened up to Vogue about changing her last name to Affleck, calling it “romantic.”

“People are still going to call me Jennifer Lopez. But my legal name will be Mrs. Affleck because we’re joined together. We’re husband and wife. I’m proud of that. I don’t think that’s a problem,” she said.

When asked if she wished Ben would go by Mr. Lopez, she laughed, saying, “No! It’s not traditional. It doesn’t have any romance to it. It feels like it’s a power move, you know what I mean? I’m very much in control of my own life and destiny and feel empowered as a woman and as a person. I can understand that people have their feelings about it, and that’s okay, too. But if you want to know how I feel about it, I just feel like it’s romantic. It still carries tradition and romance to me, and maybe I’m just that kind of girl.”

She also gave some insight into life at home with their blended family of five kids. She has twins Max and Emme, 14, from her marriage to Marc Anthony. Ben has Violet, 16, Seraphina, 13, and Samuel, 10, from his marriage to Jennifer Garner.

Lopez said Garner is “an amazing co-parent, and they work really well together.”

For Jennifer and Marc it is a little harder because they live on opposite coasts. “The transition is a process that needs to be handled with so much care,” she explained. “They have so many feelings. They’re teens. But it’s going really well so far. What I hope to cultivate with our family is that his kids have a new ally in me and my kids have a new ally in him, someone who really loves and cares about them but can have a different perspective and help me see things that I can’t see with my kids because I’m so emotionally tied up.”

Looking back at her first relationship with Ben, she recalled, “We were so young and so in love at that time, really very carefree, with no kids, no attachments. And we were just living our lives, being happy and out there. It didn’t feel like we needed to hide from anybody or be real discreet. We were just living out loud, and it turned out to really bite us. There was a lot underneath the surface there, people not wanting us to be together, people thinking I wasn’t the right person for him.”