Jennifer Lopez Says She And Ben Affleck Are In It For The Long Haul
Jennifer Lopez is on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone to promote her new rom-com, Marry Me. In the interview Jennifer claims that she “won’t talk about” her rekindled relationship with Ben Affleck “a lot,” but then she proceeds to talk about it. Maybe not “a lot,” but a fair amount. JLo says that Bennifer wouldn’t have gotten back together if they weren’t serious, and there are no plans for a breakup. Well, not at least until after the release of Gigli 2: Even More Gobble Gobble.
Initially, when the interviewer asks if her relationship with 49-year-old Ben is turning out well, 52-year-old Jennifer plays coy, via Rolling Stone:
“I won’t talk about it a lot. We’ve both grown. We’re the same, and we’re different. And that’s what’s nice.”
Nice? Nice?
“Yeah … having a second chance at real love … yeah.” Now the leg is shaking. “Like I said, we learned a lot. We know what’s real, what’s not real. So it’s just — the game has changed. Again, I’m trying not to say too much.”
Later JLo says that she’s very happy and she and Ben are totally committed to staying together:
“I don’t think we would have got back together if we thought that was where it was headed,” she says. “We feel like what we found again is so much more important, and how we protect that and how we live our lives — what to share, what not to share — is the balance that we have now, the benefit of experience and the wisdom that we gained over the years.”
She says that the criticism and mockery back in the early 2000s was a big part of why she and Ben originally split. Her friend and producing partner, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, says that the body-shaming, sexism, and racism that Jennifer’s experienced was at its worst during the original Bennifer craze:
“Instead of being celebrated, they criticized. They marginalized. They reduced her. They wouldn’t give it to her, ever.”
Elaine adds:
“Here was a woman who had the Number One movie and the Number One album. That had never happened. And they were writing about Puffy. [A year later] Maid in Manhattan was Number One. But here’s what the press said: ‘Ben Affleck sleeps with the help.’ She just didn’t get the credit that other — I don’t know how else to say it — white actresses got. And I know, because I worked with them.”
The article notes that during this time South Park called her a “mean-spirited bitch” in the Taco-Flavored Kisses episode, and, in a Conan O’Brien sketch, their “script intern” was cast as a stand-in for Ben, and their “cleaning lady” for Jen. JLo says:
“It was brutal,” Lopez says now. “It was brutal. It’s one of those things that you bury very deeply so you can move on and get about your business.” She was able to compartmentalize, until eventually she wasn’t. “It’s funny because Ben and I were together, and we were so in love. It was one of the happiest times of my life. But also, there was this other thing happening where we were being criticized, and it really destroyed our relationship from the inside out, because we were just too young to understand at that time what were really the most important things in life.”
Will love conquer all this time around? Or will history repeat itself? Will Ben cheat as Ben is wont to do? Will JLo get cheated on as JLo is wont to do? Find out next time on, Bennifer: We Love Attention!
And here are some pics from JLo’s Rolling Stone photoshoot:
Pic: Rolling Stone