The year was 2004. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck had already postponed their wedding when they decided to go their separate ways. "Jennifer Lopez has ended her engagement to Ben Affleck. At this difficult time, we ask that you respect her privacy," read a statement given to MTV at the time. It wasn't until the two reconnected years later that they both started opening up about that time in their lives. "The idea that people hate you and they hate you together and that being together is poison and ugly and toxic and the thing none of us want to be part of," Affleck said on an episode of "The Howard Stern Show" in 2021. But the split wasn't easy — and Lopez even called it her biggest heartbreak ever.
"It was so painful after we broke up. Once we called off that wedding 20 years ago, it was the biggest heartbreak of my life, and I honestly felt like I was going to die," Lopez revealed in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. After the split, Lopez explained that she couldn't even perform the songs she had written on her album "This Is Me... Then" that were about Affleck because it was just too painful.
