Jennifer Lopez Reflects on Ben Affleck Divorce, Says Her ‘Whole F*cking World Exploded’
Jennifer Lopez has chosen herself after trying to fight for her marriage to actor-director Ben Affleck.
The This Is Me…Now artist chatted with comedian Nikki Glaser for a recent Interview Magazine cover story, and while she didn’t reference Affleck by name, Lopez admitted that her “whole fucking world exploded” after centering him in her new LP and companion visual album.
Among one of the lessons explored in the Prime Video film was emotional growth, which Lopez revisited in her conversation with Glaser.
“It’s a lifelong process. I think that’s what I love about life, that there’s no arrival point,” Lopez said. “There’s only getting better and growing if you want to. It’s either growing or dying, and I don’t want to do the dying part. And yeah, there’s times when I thought I figured it out, and then life goes, ‘Let’s send you another thing and see if you fall for it. Let’s see if you really have learned that lesson.’ And I hadn’t.”
She continued, “I understand that now in a much deeper way, which doesn’t mean that I won’t make mistakes in the future, but again, when your whole house blows up, you’re standing there in the rubble going, ‘How do I not ever let that happen again?’ And then you start examining it little by little saying, ‘Okay, I did this, this was my part in it, this was what I should have seen early on, this is what I didn’t look at.’ Those things are what really are the lessons.”
After finding that the point is “figuring yourself out” after a split, the mother of two also explained what she’s learned in this new season of life.
“But you have to be healthy. You have to be complete, if you want something that’s more complete. You have to be good on your own,” Lopez said. “I thought I learned that, but I didn’t. And then, this summer, I had to be like, ‘I need to go off and be on my own. I want to prove to myself that I can do that.'”
Confessing that the journey feels “lonely, unfamiliar, scary,” “sad” and “desperate,” the 55-year-old came to terms with being “capable of joy and happiness” on her own.
“Being in a relationship doesn’t define me. I can’t be looking for happiness in other people,” she shared. “I have to have happiness within myself. I used to say I’m a happy person, but was still looking for something for somebody else to fill, and it’s just like, “No, I’m actually good.'”
Lopez added that she once thought she couldn’t be loved if she had flaws and that she needed “to be perfect to be loved.”
“That’s not true!” she elaborated. “Somebody who truly loves you will help you heal those parts of yourself. That’s what I’ve learned about love, that it is a secure thing. You make me feel safe, and when I fall short of the glory, you understand me and you help me to grow to be better, because you have your boundaries and I have my boundaries.”
When Glaser replied that Lopez has a “new bar” for her next love interest, Lopez confessed that “There’s no new bar because I’m not looking for anybody.”
While Lopez has taken herself off the market for now, she filed for divorce from Affleck on August 20, the two-year anniversary of their marriage. The former couple are legally separated and have put their Beverly Hills mansion up for sale.
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