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Jennifer Lopez has made a name for herself in the entertainment industry for decades, so it would be understandable if she kept her last name after marriage; however, the Latina singer put her romance with Ben Affleck first and decided to become Mrs. Affleck legally.
For the December 2022 cover interview with Vogue, the multi-hyphenate star said that “people are still going to call me Jennifer Lopez,” but her “legal name will be Mrs. Affleck because we’re joined together.”
“We’re husband and wife. I’m proud of that. I don’t think that’s a problem,” the 53-year-old singer, actress, and businesswoman told the publication. Jennifer said she would never want Affleck to take her last name. “No! It’s not traditional. It doesn’t have any romance to it,” she assures.
“It feels like it’s a power move, you know what I mean?” Lopez said. “I’m very much in control of my own life and destiny and feel empowered as a woman and as a person.”
Lopez told Vogue that her name preference is romantic
“But if you want to know how I feel about it, I just feel like it’s romantic,” she said. “It still carries tradition and romance to me, and maybe I’m just that kind of girl.”
Lopez said that rekindling her relationship with Affleck confirmed that what they had going on was always genuine and meant to be. “I always felt like there was a real love there, a true love there,” Lopez said. “People in my life know that he was a very, very special person in my life. When we reconnected, those feelings for me were still very real.” Lopez said that she and Affleck “lost each other and found each other.”
“Not to discredit anything in between that happened because all those things were real too,” she went on. “All we’ve ever wanted was to kind of come to a place of peace in our lives where we really felt that type of love that you feel when you’re very young and wonder if you can have that again. Does it exist? Is it real? All those questions that I think everyone has.”
The Afflecks dated for two years before calling it quits in 2004
Lopez married legendary salsa singer Marc Anthony from 2004 to 2014 and welcomed their now 14-year-old twins Max and Emme.
Ben Affleck married Jennifer Garner in 2005 and divorced in 2018. They share three kids: daughters Violet, 16, and Seraphina, 13, and son Samuel, 10.
“You go through all these relationships, and you’re searching, and you’re connecting, and you’re disconnecting with people, and you’re like, God, is this just what life is? Like a carousel, roller coaster, carnival ride? And then it settles,” Lopez said.
She added, “But the journey to that is the mystery for everybody.”