Jennifer Lopez Says She & Ben Affleck ‘Both Have PTSD’ From Scrutiny During Their First Romance

The craze surrounding “Bennifer” back in the day has left both Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck a little worse for wear, the Marry Me star says.

In a Wednesday (Dec. 20) interview with Variety, Lopez revealed that the public intrigue into her early romance with her now husband back in the 2000s still affects them to this day. “We both have PTSD,” she told the publication.

“But we’re older now,” she added. “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.”

The star’s comments come ahead of her long-awaited album This Is Me…Now, which drops Feb. 16 along with her film of the same name. Lopez told Variety that the film will document her relationship with Affleck, noting, “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.”

After first meeting on the set of their film Gigli, Lopez and the actor got engaged in 2002 before calling off their wedding in early 2004. Many years later, after both parties got married, had kids with other people and divorced, the two rekindled their romance in 2021 and tied the knot in 2022.

“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,” Lopez said of her upcoming releases. “But I had to do it.”