It was a BAD time: Jennifer Lopez gets emotional as she recalls her broken marriage with Ben Affleck in 2004: 'We couldn't bear the weight of fame'.
Jennifer Lopez emotionally recalled breaking off her marriage to Ben Affleck in 2004 when they first dated.
The singer, 54, opened up about her relationship with her husband Ben, 51, in her new documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told.
The new documentary charts the singer during the making of her latest album This Is Me... Now as well as her twenty-year journey to 'self-love'.
Jennifer, 54, and Ben, 51, were famously engaged in the early 2000s before breaking up, only to reunite - and later marry - in July 2022.
Their initial two-year romance was highly publicised and the intense scrutiny on their relationship was difficult for the couple to handle.
The singer, 54, opened up about her relationship with her husband Ben, 51, in her new documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told
Jennifer said: 'Ben and I broke up three days before our wedding and we crumbled under the pressure. You think you're doing ok so you shrug it off.
The On The Floor hitmaker also got candid about the pain she felt when the relationship came to an end.
She said: 'I had a broken heart once I lost the love of my life, my best friend, and I couldn't talk for so many years and that was the hardest part.
'I used to think it was everyone else who was broken, now I think it was just me.'
The couple's love story started in 2002 when they dated while filming the movie Jersey Girl. They became engaged the following year but broke up in 2004.
Yet it was meant to be for the couple, known collectively as Bennifer, who found their way back to one another in July 2021, marrying just one year later.
They detailed the highs and lows of their rekindled romance in Jennifer's new documentary, with Ben revealed he initially asked his wife to keep their relationship offline when they decided to give things another ago.
While navigating their reconciliation, two decades following their first engagement, the two-time Oscar winner admitted he had zero interest in becoming a fixture on his wife's social media accounts.
She said: 'I had a broken heart once I lost the love of my life, my best friend, and I couldn't talk for so many years and that was the hardest part'
became engaged the following year but broke up in 2004
'Getting back together, I said, 'Listen, one of the things I don't want is a relationship on social media,' the actor recalled.
'Then I sort of realized it's not a fair thing to ask. It's sort of like, you're gonna marry a boat captain and you go, "Well, I don't like the water."'
He continued: 'We're just two people with different kinds of approaches trying to learn to compromise.'
Ultimately, Jennifer respected his wishes, and has only posted a small handful of snaps featuring him,
including a raunchy shirtless photo last Father's Day and a sweet video of them singing Sam Cooke's (What A) Wonderful World in the car on his birthday.
During the documentary, the mother-of-two acknowledged Ben's discomfort with stepping in the spotlight as a couple after facing intense media scrutiny when they first dated between 2002 and 2004.
'I don't think [Ben] is very comfortable with me doing all of this,' she said. '
But he loves me, he knows I'm an artist, and he's gonna support me in every way he can because he knows you can't stop me from making the music I made…
he doesn't want to stop me. But that doesn't mean he's comfortable being the muse.'
2004 - 2005
Later that year, Jennifer sought comfort in her longtime friend, Marc Anthony, explaining: '[I wanted to] find someone who could make me feel loved and wanted in my loneliest hour...
'Thinking back, maybe deep down I knew that this was a Band-Aid on the cut.'
She married the singer that June and went on to have twins with the star in 2008. She divorced Marc in 2014.
Ben meanwhile wed actress Jennifer Garner in 2005 and they share three children, Violet, 15, Seraphina, 12, and Samuel, 9. The couple split in 2018.
Elsewhere in the documentary, Jennifer burst into tears as she confessed what her husband made her see in herself was 'moving'.
She shared that 'we both have PTSD' from their initial dating experience, but explained that in their present life as a married couple they're 'older' and 'wiser' (pictured in 2003)
