2023 was a pretty quiet year for Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. They married in the summer of 2022 and they got a blitz of attention and media, then they just… focused on their work and figuring out their blended family. They’ve made appearances on each other’s red carpets and they’ve done a few events together, but their marriage has not been pap stroll after pap stroll. They’re older and wiser now – they know how to hide, they can insulate themselves with their money, and they’re both more comfortable in themselves and in their relationship. Well, J.Lo has This Is Me… Now coming out – an album and a short film – in February. To hype those projects, Jennifer chatted with Variety:

Jennifer Lopez admits not everyone in her camp initially supported the idea to document her romance with husband Ben Affleck in her upcoming “This Is Me… Now” album and companion film.

“As artists, we have to follow our heart and this is me following my heart and doing something that maybe everybody didn’t think was the best idea, but I had to do it,” Lopez tells me.

Lopez is set to drop “This Is Me… Now,” a new album that marks the 20th anniversary of “This Is Me…Then,” on Feb. 16. The Dave Meyers-directed companion short film will be released at the same time by Amazon MGM Studios.

Sure, Lopez has some worries about putting her and Affleck’s life in the spotlight because “we both have PTSD” caused by the media scrutiny they endured back when they first dated, she said, “but we’re older now. We’re wiser. We also know what’s important, what’s really important in life, and it’s not so much what other people think. It’s about being true to who you are.”

Asked if the film is a scripted feature or doc, Lopez explained, “You have to see it and you’ll have to experience it to understand it. That’s why I call it a ‘musical experience.’ Because there’s music, you can see it, you can hear it and then you’ll get to live it.”

A recent teaser for the film included a clip of Lopez saying, “When I was a little girl, when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always… in love.”

[From Variety]

“We both have PTSD” – I can see that, and they both went running in opposite directions for years after their split. I talked about this before, but when I watched J.Lo’s Halftime documentary, they included clips of the aggressively racist coverage of Bennifer 1.0 and it really was shocking to look back at it now. I lived through it and even I forgot how bad it was. Like, it was so normalized circa 2002-03, to refer to Jennifer as “the maid,” or Ben’s “spicy senorita” and no one was even doing dog-whistles, it was just blatantly vile sh-t. And I do think they’re older and wiser now. Their “revival” love story is great.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, J.Lo’s Instagram.