There is a book, somewhere in Los Angeles, made up of love letters and emails sent in the Noughties that have been printed out, collected and bound in a bulging file.
It was pulled together by Ben Affleck, the Oscar-winning actor and director, and given as a present to pop princess Jennifer Lopez when the two reunited two decades after their break-up — and with four marriages and five children (with other people) between them.
To Affleck, the book was deeply personal, packed with intimate details of their relationship. To JLo, it was material, and she handed it to her producers, writers, directors and collaborators. The “bible”, as they called it, formed the basis of her new album (This is Me … Now), her new “visual album” (This is Me … Now: A Love Story), her new documentary (The Greatest Love Story Never Told) and her upcoming tour (This is Me … Live: The Greatest Hits).
These projects, however, many of which were personally funded by Lopez, 54, are bombing. The album has been the worst-performing of her career, the documentary was critically walloped and her tour is selling so slowly that dates were being cut — until Friday, when she cancelled the summer tour altogether, according to the US gig company Live Nation, “to be with her children, family and close friends”. On her website, the singer told fans: “Please know that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t feel it was absolutely necessary.”.
And as life imitates art, according to the gossip columns her two-year marriage to Affleck, 51, might now be over. It has also been reported that her planned multimillion-dollar Las Vegas residency is to be scrapped and her latest movie, Atlas, has been panned by the critics. It has been an annus horribilis.
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So has Jenny from the Block hit a roadblock? “For a pop star it’s very hard to sustain a career for as long as she has, and she has done that through her tenacity,” says Monica Rivera, a personal brand strategist from the same neighbourhood in the Bronx as Lopez. “It makes sense that the younger generation won’t resonate with her as much. That’s just what happens.”
In the late 1990s, Lopez became a dominant force in pop, decked out in her Bronx uniform of hoop earrings, cargo pants and blue-tinted diamante sunglasses, with songs such as Let’s Get Loud, I’m Real and Jenny from the Block.
After an enthusiastic arrival in Hollywood (Out of Sight, The Wedding Planner, Maid in Manhattan), she starred in the romcom Gigli — which is where she met Affleck, the perma-pissed off, bearded hunk with an Oscar, cigarette hanging out of mouth, black coffee in hand.
When they got together soon after, the intensity of their relationship was obvious (her $2.5 million engagement ring; his appearance in her music videos), but two years later — apparently affected by the frenzied tabloid coverage of their relationship, as well as differing views about fame — they broke up, cancelling their marriage just days in advance.
When they got back together in 2021, the world, emerging from lockdowns desperate for nostalgia and starved of celebrity news, went into meltdown. “Bennifer” were the ones who got away — and then found each other again.
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“In a world that doesn’t make much sense,” wrote Vox, the online magazine, “Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez being together does.” They were married in Las Vegas in 2022 — and then again in Georgia.
It was this that inspired Lopez to create so many new projects, all of which were pretty whacko. The visual album — a so-called narrative-driven cinematic odyssey self-financed to the tune of $20 million — was “just bonkers”, says Alice Leppert, professor of media and communication studies at Ursinus College, Pennsylvania, and co-editor of the journal Celebrity Studies. “It seemed like it should be a joke but she appeared to be taking it seriously, so I think audiences didn’t know how to respond.”
The accompanying documentary was about her commitment to producing art out of the relationship. But it was also about the yin and yang of the couple: Lopez, who wants to share and strives to maintain her megawatt celebrity, and Affleck, who wants to protect and guard himself against fame.
“I just want people to believe that love exists,” says Lopez in the documentary, talking about handing around the book to her colleagues. “Oh my God,” shuddered Affleck, mortified, head in hands, talking about the moment he found out what she had done. “Things that are private, I’ve always felt, are sacred and special because they’re private.”
Lopez’s love projects, however, fell largely flat. The album sold 14,000 copies in its first week, entering the Billboard charts at a humbling number 38. The arena tour cancelled a number of dates — in Cleveland and Nashville, among others — likely due to poor sales, and changed its name from This is Me … Now to This is Me… Live: The Greatest Hits in an attempt to lure in punters with the classics.
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Not all the figures are quite so dire. Atlas, in which Lopez stars as a counterterrorism analyst fighting an artificial intelligence, is currently the number-one ranking film on Netflix in the US, with 28.2 million views in its first weekend.
Unfortunately, though, Atlas has had an embarrassing critical reception. “Cheap, dark, plasticky and fake,”went one review; “Just what Jennifer Lopez needs — another flop,” said another.
After a long career in which success on screen and in song has seemed inexorable, Lopez appears to be facing a clunking new reality.
Affleck, meanwhile, has not attended the premieres of Atlas, causing wild media speculation, supplemented by various anonymous sources speaking about how the couple are now living separately and are on the “precipice”, with people counting the days since they have been “seen” with each other.
“We are totally different people now,” said Lopez in her documentary. “And we’re the same.”
