“This is what people do, they break up when things get hard.”

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

After 20 years, Jennifer Lopez is finally revealing what went wrong between her and Ben Affleck the first time around. In a new interview with Zane Lowe as a part of Apple Music’s This Is Me … Now Radio series, the singer got candid about their 2004 breakup.

Pop culture stans will remember that the couple called off their nuptials in 2003 just days before the big day “due to the excessive media attention surrounding our wedding,” according to a statement released at the time. In 2004, a rep for Lopez officially confirmed their split. During her interview with Lowe, Lopez reflected on what caused their breakup.

“We didn’t break up right at that moment, it happened over the series of the next few months,” she said, per Elle. “Because what it did was it casted doubt in me, and both of us, about what our relationship was, and where it was going, I think. And I knew in my heart that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life, I knew that. But it didn’t feel like we were going to make it. And so, it scared me.”

“It was very hard, it was a very sad moment of letting go of somebody that you truly love because you just can’t figure it out,” she continued. “You just don’t have the capacity and the ability at that moment, emotionally, to figure it out.”

She added that part of it was probably due to their immaturity at the time, saying they “weren’t ready” to do the work that comes with a marriage.

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“We weren’t ready to deal with and look at each other and go, ‘What we have is real, we need to buckle down, we need to do some work,'” she explained. “We just weren’t there yet. And so, we go, ‘Oh, this is what people do, they break up when things get hard, and we’re going to go our separate ways.’ And we went, and we both tried, and found other people, and had beautiful children, and had other families, and then even had other relationships after that.”

Affleck went on to marry Jennifer Garner and have three kids, Violet, Seraphina and Samuel. Lopez married Marc Anthony and had two kids, Emme and Max. She was later engaged to Alex Rodriguez before the two went their separate ways in 2021. Lopez noted that once she felt at peace with herself and her career, Affleck came back into her life.

“And it wasn’t until both of us had done, I know for me, a lot of work, and got into a place where I was like, you know what? I’m totally good on my own. I’m chill, I love my life, I have this amazing career that I’ve built for myself, I have these amazing children … I have great friends, that’s when he showed back up,” she said.

“Funnily enough, he said he had had the same type of experience,” she added. “And that’s kind of how it went down.”

Lopez is currently promoting her upcoming visual album This Is Me … Now: A Love Story, which drops Friday on Prime Video. Last night, the couple attended the premiere in coordinating looks that featured a bedazzled sheer zodiac-inspired gown for her and a black suit for him.