Jennifer Lopez was able to “move on” from her split from Ben Affleck after an emotional night watching a movie with her dad.
Jennifer Lopez was able to “move on” from Ben Affleck after an emotional night watching a movie with her dad.
The 56-year-old singer-and-actress – who has 18-year-old twins Max and Emme with her ex-husband Marc Anthony – split from her fourth husband in August 2024 and admitted the 2024 Oscar-winning Brazilian biopic I’m Still Here had a huge impact on her as she tried to grapple with her complex feelings without the rest of her family noticing how upset she was.
Appearing on her Office Romance co-star Brett Goldstein’s Films to Be Buried With podcast, Jennifer cried when asked: “What’s the film that changed your perspective on something or made you see the world in a new way?”
She replied: “A couple years ago, I got really sick around Christmas time. My family was in town. My dad, my mom, my cousin, everybody.
“My Dad [David] is not a sit-down watch-a-movie guy. My mom [Guadalupe] was all about movies, entertainment, musicals, the whole thing, I got all of that from her.”
But her dad agreed to watch the film – sees Fernanda Torres portray the real-life Eunice Paiva, whose politician husband Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) disappeared during Brazil’s 1964–85 military dictatorship – with her.
Jennifer noted: “I think because I was sick.”
She continued: “And at that time of my life, I was going through a divorce and thinking a lot about my kids.
“As you do when something like that happens in your life, [we watched a movie].
“My dad was sitting there and something happened in my head and I just started crying, where I started calculating all of the things with my kids, my experience with my dad, like everything happened just all at once.
“My whole family knew I was going through a hard time… He turns around and he sees my face. I was trying to quiet cry quietly — when you try to cry quietly, then it’s like all the tears, it’s like water gushing down my face.”
The Hustlers star recalled her dad asking what was wrong, leaading a tender moment between them which helped Jennifer “move on” from her difficulties.
She recalled: “I said, ‘Dads are so important.’ And he just kind of came over to me and grabbed my face and said, ‘I love you. I always loved you.’ And that kind of changed my life in that moment.
“[It] healed a part of me that needed to be healed to kind of move on from that part of my life and from those types of relationships in my life. So that movie changed me and helped me grow.”
After Brett thanked his friend for the “lovely story”, Jennifer laughed through her tears and asked: “Are you gonna cry too? Cry with me! Why are you leaving me all alone?”
Jennifer Lopez shares which movie helped her ‘heal’ from Ben Affleck split
