Jennifer Lopez is opening up even more about her romance with Ben Affleck on the publicity tour for her new album This is Me… Now and companion film This Is Me… Now: A Love Story.
The studio album – the singer’s first in a decade – is a follow up to This Is Me… Then, which came out when Bennifer were together the first time.
Their re-kindled romance and subsequent marriage in 2022 that had the whole world gripped led to this latest project and Lopez says she hopes people see ”true love does exist” and they “don’t give up hope” in their own lives.
Watch the video above.
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In her first Australian radio interview in 10 years, Lopez told Hit Network’s Carrie and Tommy she does feel like she’s found her “forever” with the Oscar-winner.
“Obviously, I’ve created a whole project that is an examination of that journey between the This Is Me.. Then album that I wrote 20 years ago when Ben and I were together to This Is Me … Now and wanting to share it with the world,” Lopez told co-hosts Carrie Bickmore and Tommy Little.
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“They’ve followed me on that journey and watched me make mistakes and go in and out of relationships and wondered what was going on.
“I got to the point in my life where I felt like I have some answers about this, and actually, true love does exist, and some things are forever. Don’t give up hope.”
While the musician says she’s happy to share details of her private life publicly, there is a line.
“When people are being disrespectful, you know what I mean, that’s a line for me,” Lopez said.
“I’m happy to talk about my life, and I understand I’m a public person, and I share a lot of my life with the public. I do have boundaries though – when it comes to my kids, when it comes to my husband – and I think those are appropriate.”
The movie touches on her life in the tabloids, including her three marriages and five engagements, with her character in the film classed by friends as a love addict and a sex addict.
When asked how much is true about the last part, Lopez laughs.
“No, no – that’s why I laugh,” she told Bickmore and Little.
“People can think all kinds of things when they’re seeing you from the outside, thinking they know what your life is, and you’re like ‘well that’s actually the opposite of the truth’, but it was nice to toy around with all of those ideas.”
“If anything, I would say I was more of a love addict or a workaholic than everything else.”
And that, she says, is the biggest misconception about her – people feel like they know everything about her.
“For me, I felt like with this project it was more about sharing a part of myself that I had never shared,” she said.
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“In show business, I always felt like it was about putting your best foot forward, show up for everybody, make everybody laugh, sing, and dance and have a good time … but there was a part of me that I felt I was hiding.”
Lopez admitted previously that she had moments of self-doubt along the way, especially in such a personal and vulnerable project.
But it seems a few words of encouragement from Affleck helped JLo get the confidence she needed for the project.
“Ben kind of said this to me… I was like, ‘I don’t write. I don’t do this’. He was like, ‘You do – You write. You direct. You produce. You do all the things. You choreograph. Start stepping into that. Start owning that a little bit. Start owning a little bit of who you are’,” Lopez said during a press conference for international media, including 9honey Celebrity.
Grammy Award-winning music video director Dave Myers worked alongside the singer to bring her vision to life and said he was in awe of her drive and not taking “no” for an answer – even from her husband.
“There was a very sweet and mentor level conversation with Ben [Affleck] talking to both of us, saying it couldn’t be done in the way that we wanted to do it,” Myers told the international press conference.
“And Jen just kind of looked at me like, ‘Okay, we’re going to do it’.
Lopez quipped: “Don’t tell me I can’t do something. That’s all. It is a very simple thing.”
Later, Lopez said her decision to finance the project herself – to the tune of $US20 million ($30.1 million) for a three-part multimedia project, according to Variety – raised some eyebrows.
“Everybody thought I was crazy when I said I would do it,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
This Is Me…Now: A Love Story launches globally on Prime Video February 16, coinciding with the release of Jennifer’s new album This Is Me…Now.
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