After two years of marriage, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck called it quits. Now, "Jenny from the Block" is speaking out about their split in a candid new interview.
The 'Atlas' actress spoke with 'Interview' magazine Wednesday when she explained why she is "excited" to be by herself despite a "lonely, unfamiliar, scary" new territory.
"Everything that I've done over the past 25, 30 years, being in these different challenging situations, what can I [...] do when it's just me flying on my own ... what if I'm just free?" she told to Nikki Glaser. "When you sit in those feelings and go, 'These things are not going to kill me,' it's like, 'Actually, I am capable of joy and happiness all by myself.' "
Lopez, 55, continued: "You have to be complete, if you want something that's more complete. You have to be good on your own. I thought I learned that, but I didn't. And then, this summer, I had to be like, 'I need to go off and be on my own. I want to prove to myself that I can do that.' "
The "On the Floor" songstress added how "Being in a relationship doesn't define me. I can't be looking for happiness in other people. I have to have happiness within myself. I used to say I'm a happy person, but was still looking for something for somebody else to fill, and it's just like, 'No, I'm actually good.' "
Glaser, 40, asked the Bronx native whether "this is the first time you've been able to say that as a single woman?" Lopez answered: "Yes!"
"You know what? For people who are romantics and love being in relationships and want to grow old with somebody, we think, 'I have to have that to be whole and happy.' And you don't," she said.
"My whole life has been proving my enoughness. Dealing with feeling like you're enough, from when you're very young, is something that you don't figure out for a long time, because you're not looking at yourself like that," she added. "Something is driving you and your decisions and you don't know why. You start going, "Wait a minute, what [...] is going on here?"
She explained how her upbringing and "just being ignored, being a middle child, having a very outgoing mom and a dad who worked all day and worked all night and feeling like you weren't important, like you weren't a priority. That embeds in you, and I think your parents are doing the best they can. Even now being a parent, I have much more empathy for what they've been through. I love my parents, but I do see the effect of who they were and how they were raised, on me. You don't even really know until those things start manifesting in your actual adult relationships."
Fans have continued to hope for a reconciliation between Lopez and Affleck, 52, especially after Affleck and Lopez were spotted packing on PDA on Sept. 14.
However, Lopez and Affleck's meeting with celebrity divorce lawyer Laura Wasser made it clear that there is no going back for the former power couple.
The 'Hustlers' star and the 'Gone Girl' actor had a meeting with the attorney at their office building in West Hollywood late September, 'TMZ' reported.
Unnamed insiders told the outlet that Lopez and Affleck hired Wasser to mediate their divorce long before the singer-actress officially filed to end their marriage in August.
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