Some have compared Lopez, who’s been married four times, to the late Elizabeth Taylor, famously married eight times
Jennifer Lopez is one of the most successful performers in the world, talented, beautiful – with millions in album sales and box office receipts. However, her love life has not quite lived up to her mega stardom.
“Jennifer Lopez is a powerhouse who leads a life far different from most of us,” Amy Laurent, professional matchmaker and author of “8 Weeks to Everlasting- How to get (and keep!) the Guy You Really Want,” told Fox News Digital. “Celebrities, in general, are in very unique circumstances so are naturally going to face much greater challenges in finding love. For mega-stars with extravagant lifestyles, the difficulty is even greater.”
Lopez recently filed for divorce from her fourth husband, Ben Affleck. The couple had been married two years, rekindling their romance nearly 20 years after their first go around in the relationship.
“[Lopez] has no trouble finding love, she has trouble sustaining a long-term relationship, much like Elizabeth Taylor,” Alessandra Conti, a celebrity matchmaker, told Fox News Digital.
Taylor was famously married eight times to seven men, including twice to Richard Burton, one of her greatest loves.
“Married four times, engaged six times, [she] has no problem falling in love and getting to the commitment stage with a man, but it appears that she may lack the tools needed to grow with a partner past that honeymoon phase,” Conti said. “Falling in love and staying in love takes a completely different skill set. Biologically speaking, studies have shown that the hormone spikes that are present in the falling in love stages taper off around year two, and that is when love becomes a verb, and not just a cocktail of hormones and feelings.”
Lopez’s first husband was Ojani Noa, a Cuban waiter. According to a 2022 interview Noa did with The Daily Mail, they first met in 1996 and married the following year in February.
“I had no idea who she was,” he told the outlet. “Our eyes glanced at each other and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
In 1997, Lopez was launched to stardom thanks to her role in “Selena.”
“We fell in love when she was already famous,” he told the outlet. “But during our marriage, she became a megastar. For years, it was too painful to talk about. I wanted to lie low and live my life. But when I saw she got married to Ben, who is a good guy, the feelings came flooding back.”
“Celebrities, in general, are in very unique circumstances so are naturally going to face much greater challenges in finding love.”
Damona Hoffman, host of “The Dates & Mates Podcast,” told Fox News Digital the tension between Lopez’s relationship with work and fame and her personal life proved to be a recurring issue.
“From early in her career, Jennifer Lopez seemed to be driven for the spotlight,” she said. “Even when she was in background dancing roles she worked her way to being featured, then earning leading roles, and eventually mega-stardom. That kind of drive requires sacrifice in your personal life and some level of obsession with, not just getting it right but getting it perfect.”
After a relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs, Lopez next married her backup dancer, Chris Judd, in 2001.
Judd appeared in Lopez’s “Love Don’t Cost A Thing” music video in 2000, and, according to him, the relationship had to stay quiet at first.
They made a formal appearance as a couple at the 2001 Oscars, which Judd said in an episode of “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” was “just bedlam. I’ve never seen so many people concentrated in one place, especially cameras. I knew she was there to do a job, and so I was just that guy who was just by her side.”
He added later in the episode that being with a superstar was rough, saying, “It sucks. It’s not fun, it’s very intrusive.”
While her divorce from Judd was being finalized, Lopez began her first relationship with Affleck.
They met on the set of the 2002 film “Gigli,” a notorious box office bomb, but the relationship that came out of it launched the “Bennifer” era in the early 2000s. They also appeared together in the music video for Lopez’s song “Jenny From the Block,” which satirized the paparazzi attention the couple received.
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez attempted to satirize their tabloid fame in the music video for “Jenny From the Block.” (Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
In Lopez’s documentary this year, “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” the former couple both admit that the scrutiny caused their first engagement to derail.
“She has had many relationship highs and lows and had as many hits as she has failures, but she always goes all in on her career and relationships…”
“Ben and I, we broke up three days before our wedding,” Lopez said in the documentary. “We had a big wedding planned – 14 ushers and bridesmaids, and three days before we just crumbled under the pressure.”
Affleck added in a separate interview, “When Jen and I broke up before, the catalyst for that was this massive amount of scrutiny around our private life.”
Ben Affleck said, “When Jen and I broke up before, the catalyst for that was this massive amount of scrutiny around our private life.” (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
“Even though Ben is an A-lister in his own right, he notoriously tries to keep his personal life private, which is not a realistic expectation when he is dating another star,” Conti said. “He may be attracted to women who are powerful and charismatic, but as a Hollywood Matchmaker for 12 years, I would err on the side of extreme caution in matching him with another female celebrity. He craves his privacy, and this is not going to be possible for him if he continues to date women in the public eye.”
After they parted ways, Lopez went on to marry Marc Anthony. The couple were together from 2004 to 2014 and share two children together, twins Max and Emme.
In a 2021 profile for In Style, Anthony praised Lopez’s work ethic, calling her “the hardest worker” and described her as “the first one in the room and the last to leave.”
“When we were together, it was quite the opposite for me. That has changed since. I learned so much from her. She’s the original!” he added.
Conti noted that for Lopez, “power dynamics may be a huge cause for her issues in sustaining a long-term relationship. JLo needs a totally secure partner or no partner at all because her success and take-charge personality could lead to feelings of inadequacy in a man who is not totally secure within himself, which then leads to resentment and a power imbalance.”
“JLo also needs a man with strong communication skills, and can work on her skills as well. Relationships are all about compromise and consistently committing to the relationship each day,” she added.
Following her divorce from Anthony, Lopez was in an on-again-off-again relationship with dancer Casper Smart.
At the time, the former couple issued a joint statement to “Today.”
“We have realized we are better as friends and look forward to remaining so,” the statement said. “We will continue to work together and support each other on our shared businesses and projects. We wish the best for each other and one another’s children. Out of respect for them, the only other comment we have to say is thank you to everyone who has sent kind words and support.”
“One pattern JLo has is a lot of on-again-off-again relationships and habits in love are difficult to break. From P-Diddy to her backup dancer Casper Smart and now Ben Affleck, it seems that once you’ve earned JLo’s heart, there will always be the temptation for her to return to trust and familiarity because often times, that feels like a safer bet than stepping into the unknown,” Hoffman said of the rekindled romance.
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez revived their romance and married in 2022. (Rich Fury/WireImage)
The relationship seemed to be going well the second time around, 20 years later, but cracks began to show earlier this year. Some of them were visible in the documentary, where the public vs. private debate reared its head again.
Rumors of their breakup began to swirl not long after the premiere of the documentary and her album, “This Is Me Now..” and its accompanying high-concept music film “This is Me…Now: A Love Story.”
“JLo needs a totally secure partner or no partner at all because her success and take-charge personality could lead to feelings of inadequacy in a man who is not totally secure within himself.”
In June, Affleck appeared on Kevin Hart’s Peacock show “Hart to Heart,” where he called Lopez’s level of fame “f—ing bananas.”
“I don’t like a lot of attention,” he added. “This is why people see me, and they’re like, ‘Why is this dude always mad?’ Because someone had their camera sticking in my face, and I’m like, ‘OK, here we go.'”
Laurent said of their seeming incompatibility, “I think Ben truly loves her, but this is truly a lesson in the fact that chemistry and love ALONE is not going to stand the test of time without alignment in long-term compatibility.”
Around the time of the interview, a source confirmed to Fox News Digital that the pair had been living separately.
“He started moving out a while ago,” a source told Fox News Digital at the time. “The marriage is completely over, and Jennifer is heartbroken. She loves love and wanted this to work so badly.”
Lopez filed for divorce on Aug. 20 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Her petition for the dissolution of their marriage was filed on the two-year anniversary of their Georgia wedding. Lopez listed April 26 as the date of separation, according to People magazine.
A source told Fox News Digital Lopez gave her marriage her all and wanted to make things work, while Affleck “threw in the towel a long time ago.”
Celebrity divorce attorney Christopher Melcher, partner at Walzer Melcher & Yoda LLP, told Fox News Digital that Lopez filing first, “shows that she is taking the lead in getting this done.”
Hoffman said “Jennifer Lopez also seems to lean into the unexpected. She makes headlines by doing the thing you don’t expect her to do. Maybe she’s doing it for the plot? Or maybe she’s just trying to live life on her own terms when every move she makes is scrutinized and every place she goes is swarmed by paparazzi.”
The divorce is obviously still fresh for Lopez, but matchmakers have hopes and recommendations for the icon to find love again.
“In my professional opinion, she will need someone who is not only extremely successful and talented in their field but also confident and steady, providing a calm strength that complements her and allows her to shine,” Laurent said.
“She’s not one to change, so her ideal match would be someone who can embrace her flamboyant tastes while truly loving and supporting who she is at her core. I’m not loving the idea of another musical artist or athletes. Instead, I think she’d be better suited with a powerhouse in the business world.”
She recommended a “Travis Kelce prototype,” saying she would do well with “a partner with a strong, masculine energy to compliment her.” Conti also agreed that a business mogul would be a good fit, “a man who is hyper-focused on his business endeavors; be it in real estate, finance, tech, etc.”
