Jennifer Lopez Talks About Single Life After Her Divorce From Ben
“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.’”
Jennifer Lopez is opening up about her single era. In an Oct. 9 piece for Interview Magazine, Lopez explained how she’s been moving on after divorcing Ben Affleck in August. During Lopez’s conversation with comedian Nikki Glaser, she discussed what it’s like to be “free” and “on [her] own.”
Per Lopez, she’s content staying single for now. “I’m not looking for anybody, because everything that I’ve done over the past 25, 30 years, being in these different challenging situations, what can I f*cking do when it’s just me flying on my own... What if I’m just free?”
But as a self-proclaimed “romantic,” getting to that point hasn’t been easy. She told Glaser, “For people who are romantics and love being in relationships and want to grow old with somebody, we think, ‘I have to have that to be whole and happy.’ And you don’t.”
Up until this point, romance has been a huge part of Lopez’s life. (In February, she released a movie about her love life, This Is Me... Now: A Love Story.) Reflecting on that project, she said, “I did all the work and look at where I am, and then it was like my whole f*cking world exploded.”
Now, things are different. “[Being on your own] feels lonely, unfamiliar, scary. It feels sad. It feels desperate. But when you sit in those feelings and go, ‘These things are not going to kill me,’ it’s like actually, I am capable of joy and happiness all by myself,” Lopez said.
She continued, “Being in a relationship doesn’t define me. I can’t be looking for happiness in other people. 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.’”
Going forward, Lopez is focusing on herself. “You have to be complete, if you want something that’s more complete. You have to be good on your own,” she added. “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.’” (In July, Affleck notably skipped Lopez’s 55th birthday party.)
According to her, that inner work never fully ends. “It’s looking back at the feelings underneath and the belief systems that we have about ourselves that make us make certain choices and create certain patterns in our life,” she said. “And so, when you get to a point where you think that you’ve learned the lessons, and then it blows up in your face again, you realize, ‘OK, I haven’t, so what is it that I need to look at right now?’ I would say, never stop looking inward, because it’s so easy to blame everybody else.”
Despite the breakup, Lopez said she learned some new lessons about relationships — specifically, you don’t “have to be perfect to be loved.” She said, “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... And so, we get better at those things together.”
