Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Tribune News Service
Tribune News Service
Entertainment
Jami Ganz

Jennifer Lopez announces another Ben Affleck-inspired album on 20th anniversary of ‘This Is Me... Then’

Bennifer 2.0 doesn’t just come with wedding bells.

Jennifer Lopez announced a new album inspired by husband Ben Affleck on Friday — exactly 20 years after releasing her first album dedicated to the actor.

The Bronx, New York, native, 53, will release “This is Me… Now” next year, she announced in an Instagram video that shows the cover of her 2002 album “This Is Me… Then” transforming into the cover of the new one.

Lopez’s announcement promises a musical journey through her reconciliation with the Oscar-winning Affleck, whom she married in July in Las Vegas after getting back together last year.

The 13 tracks on the new album include a title song and others called “Dear Ben pt. II” — presumably a continuation of 2002′s “Dear Ben” — “Midnight Trip to Vegas” and “Greatest Love Story Never Told.”

Lopez’s Instagram announcement came days after she wiped out all of her previous posts and made her other social channels dark.

The couple, dubbed Bennifer by fans, were engaged in the early 2000s but went their separate ways, with Lopez starting a family with singer Marc Anthony and Affleck marrying and having three kids with actress Jennifer Garner.

They got back together shortly after Lopez called off her engagement to former Yankee Alex Rodriguez last year.

Shortly before they got back together, Affleck reflected on the “sexist, racist [and] ... vicious s—” that was written about Lopez during their first romance.

“If you wrote it now you would literally be fired for saying those things,” the “Good Will Hunting” co-writer and star told The Hollywood Reporter’s “Award Chatter” podcast in January 2021, saying Lopez is now “lionized and respected for the work she did, where she came from, what she accomplished — as well she f—ing should be.”

Lopez and Affleck got engaged again in April.

In a fan newsletter shortly after the Vegas wedding, Lopez referred to herself as Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck.

“We read our own vows in the little chapel and gave one another the rings we’ll wear for the rest of our lives,” Lopez wrote.

“They even had Bluetooth for a (short) march down the aisle. But in the end it was the best possible wedding we could have imagined. One we dreamed of long ago and one made real ... at very, very long last.”

A few weeks later, Lopez and Affleck had a second marriage ceremony in Georgia.

———

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.