Blended brood! Jennifer Lopez gushed over her amicable relationship with Ben Affleck’s ex-wife, Jennifer Garner.
The “On the Floor” singer, 53, called Jen, 50, an “amazing coparent” during an interview with Vogue published on Tuesday, November 8, adding that “they work really well together.”
Ben, 50, and the 13 Going on 30 actress share three kids, Violet, Seraphina and Samuel, from their marriage, which lasted from 2005 to 2018. For her part, the “Let’s Get Loud” singer and ex-husband Marc Anthony, who were married from 2004 to 2014, share twins Emme and Max.
The “Ain’t Your Mama” singer acknowledged that she and Ben handled the blending of their families with “so much care.”
“They have so many feelings. They’re teens. But it’s going really well so far,” the Maid in Manhattan actress explained. “What I hope to cultivate with our family is that his kids have a new ally in me and my kids have a new ally in him, someone who really loves and cares about them.”
Jennifer noted she also appreciates having Ben as a “different perspective” when it comes to parenting, as she’s “so emotionally tied” to her teens.
Melding their personal lives together isn’t the only major change in Jen’s life since walking down the aisle with Ben, whom she was previously engaged to 15 years prior before their split in 2004. She also responded to backlash over changing her last name after her marriage to Ben.
“People are still going to call me Jennifer Lopez. But my 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 singer said, admitting she was surprised by the strong reaction.
As far as the idea of Ben changing his last name to Lopez, the Hustlers actress said it’s “not traditional” and she doesn’t feel as though there is any “romance to it.”
“It feels like it’s a power move, you know what I mean?” the “Let’s Get Loud” artist continued. “I’m very much in control of my own life and destiny and feel empowered as a woman and as a person. I can understand that people have their feelings about it, and that’s OK, too. But if you want to know how I feel about it, I just feel like it’s romantic. It still carries tradition and romance to me, and maybe I’m just that kind of girl.”
Ben and Jen’s love story came full circle after their first romance ended. They rekindled things after the Way Back actor emailed her following her split from Alex Rodriguez in April 2021, as he had just gotten out of a relationship with Ana De Armas.
“I never shied away from the fact that for me, I always felt like there was a real love there, a true love there,” the Marry Me actress gushed. “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.”
That being said, Jen acknowledged that she doesn’t want to “discredit” the relationships they each had in interim “because all those things were real too.”
“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?” she mused. “All those questions that I think everyone has. 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? … But the journey to that is the mystery for everybody.”
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