Jennifer Lopez held essentially nothing back about her and Ben Affleck’s 20-year love story during her interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1, including the poignant messages Affleck had engraved on both the pink diamond engagement ring he originally gave Lopez in the early 2000s during their first engagement, and the green diamond engagement ring he gave her this past April.
Lopez started by discussing their journey reconciling and how a sign-off message Affleck wrote in the emails he sent her when they first started corresponding again ultimately made it onto her new engagement ring.
“We did know each other forever, and we had to live these separate paths and we did other beautiful things and we had these amazing children,” she started. “But when we came back together and the universe and God and, as it would have it… Once we got whole enough and complete enough and loved ourselves enough and could stand on our own two feet really completely, as the universe would have it, we were brought into each other’s lives again.”
“And it was a crack in the clouds and that song came through and it was like, ‘Boom, that’s it.’ And we were both very sure,” she continued. “I mean, I remember… In one of the songs that I wrote for the album [the upcoming This Is Me…Now], which is on the inside of this ring right here, my engagement ring that he gave me, it says, ‘Not period, going period, anywhere period.’ Where in my first diamond ring he gave me, the pink diamond ring, it said, ‘Sing.’ And this one he put, ‘Not period, going period, anywhere period [Not. Going. Anywhere.].’ Because that’s how he would sign his emails when we started talking again. Like, ‘Don’t worry.’”
“I’m not going anywhere,’” Lopez recalled. “And I wrote that song.”
You can watch her full interview below:
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.