Jennifer Lopez looked back on a period of self-discovery amid her divorce from ex-husband Ben Affleck.
“There comes a point where it’s all so puzzling and wrong. Where you have to sit there. After my last divorce, I just sat there,” Lopez, 56, revealed on the Monday, June 15, episode of the “Smartless” podcast. “I canceled my tour and I sat there, and I was like, ‘You need f***ing figure yourself out.’”
Lopez filed for divorce from Affleck, 53, in August 2024 on the two-year anniversary of the couple’s Georgia marriage celebration. They settled their divorce in February 2025. (Affleck were previously together in the early 2000s, even getting engaged, though they split in January 2024 without tying the knot.)
Looking back on that tumultuous period, Lopez said it was crucial to understand how her behavior factored into the marriage failing.
“[I asked], ‘What is going on with you?’ Forget about everybody else. There’s nobody to blame here except yourself in a certain way,’” she said in her “Smartless” interview. “Not that people don’t behave in a way that’s not great. But, ‘What are you doing? What do you have going on?’ That was a turning point for me. That was a couple of years ago now.”
The “All I Have” singer confirmed that she recognized certain “patterns” in her life that led to unhappiness in the past.
“Looking at those patterns, I was able to go back to that little girl [I once was] and really look at her,” she noted. “That little girl with the ripped nightgown — I can see her right now. … Dirty feet, walking around barefoot all the f***ing time. And just kind of going like, ‘You did this. You did all of this. Give yourself a little f***ing something. A little love! Stop looking for love in other things and give it to yourself.’”
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. Phillip Faraone/Getty Images
Jennifer also received some key advice from her sister Lynda Lopez, who encouraged her to be her own “keeper” rather than worrying about everyone else.
“These are all little pieces,” she said. “I feel like the journey is little puzzle pieces that you fit in little by little as you sit there with the oat milk and go, ‘It’s me.’”
Jennifer is now facing another major chapter in her life as she deals with becoming an empty nester. Earlier this month, she celebrated her twins Max and Emme graduating from high school. (Jennifer shares the twins, both 18, with ex-husband Marc Anthony.)
“It’s an emotional time,” Lopez revealed on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen on June 8. “It’s been the three of us. People have come in and out of my life, but it’s been the three of us. They’ve always been there, and I’ve always been there.”
As for any potential new love in her life, Jennifer shot down the possibility of meeting anyone new through her Instagram DMs.
“I think [anyone interesting] would be able to find me, no? If you really wanted to find me, you could find me,” Lopez joked to host Andy Cohen.
