admits she gets jealous of women who flirt with Ben Affleck, and she sent a warning to ladies who try to get his attention.
During an appearance on Today With Hoda & Jenna on Thursday, February 15, the Marry Me star, 54, played a game called “This Is Me… Now or Then?” inspired by her new album, This Is Me… Now. Host Hoda Kotb asked her questions and the ladies determined if it described them now or then.
When Kotb asked if she “gets jealous if someone hits on your significant other,” Lopez frowned and immediately held up the paddle with the word “NOW” written on it.
She made it clear she was serious about protecting Affleck, 51, and said, “Don’t play with me. Do not play with me.”
Then Kotb followed up and asked, “What would you do if someone started flirting with Ben?”
“First of all, I’m a lover, not a fighter, but I will let them know in a very elegant and lady-like way to step all the way off,” Lopez said.
Lopez and Affleck married in July 2022, 18 years after they canceled their first planned wedding in 2004. After meeting while filming Gigli in 2001, they started dating and announced their engagement in November 2022. Their wedding was planned for September 14, 2003, however the two stars called it off and ultimately ended their engagement in January 2004.
They both moved on with other people. Affleck was married to Jennifer Garner from 2005 to 2018, and they share three kids, Violet, Seraphina and Samuel. Lopez, for her part, and Marc Anthony wed in 2004, welcoming twins Emme and Max in 2008. The pair divorced in 2014.
Affleck previously talked about why his relationship with Lopez didn’t work the first time.
“I think Jen and I made a mistake in that we fell in love, we were excited and maybe too accessible,” Affleck said during an interview on the British TV series Live in 2008. “I don’t think either of us anticipated the degree to which it would take on a world of its own.”
In 2018, Lopez explained that when she moved on from Affleck in 2004, her career, as well as her personal life, was in shambles.
“I lost my sense of self, questioned if I belonged in this business, thought maybe I did suck at everything, And my relationship [with Ben] self-destructed in front of the entire world,” she told Vanity Fair in 2018. “It was a two-year thing for me until I picked myself up again.”
Lopez reunited with Affleck after her engagement to Alex Rodriguez ended in April 2021. The former couple got engaged again in April 2022 and married in July 2022.
During a February appearance on Australia’s “Kyle and Jackie O Radio Show,” Lopez said that it wasn’t until she felt “good on [her] own” that the timing was right for her and Affleck.
“That’s when the universe kind of opened up to me and was like, ‘OK, now you’re ready,’” she explained. “I couldn’t believe it and I don’t think he could either. It’s not something we ever planned. We really had moved on with our lives but when we reconnected, it was almost instant and we just knew.”
Lopez is releasing her new album This is Me… Now on Friday, along with an Amazon Prime narrative musical film titled This Is Me…Now: A Love Story. Her husband cowrote the script and also stars with her in the film.
She gushed about how Affleck inspired her to complete the album and the film during a February appearance on Today.
“He’s always supportive of whatever I’m doing. And he knows that I’m a creative person and I’m an artist, and I’m going to express myself,” she said. “I don’t think anybody really understood what I was trying to do [with the project] and that made it hard. … But he was always kind of like, ‘You can do this. Whatever you want to do. I believe in you, so you go and do your thing.’”
