Jennifer Lopez | Daniele Venturelli/Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images for Luisaviaroma
In 2002, Jennifer Lopez was one of the biggest stars in show business who easily jumped between stage and screen and claimed her spot as a certified triple threat. Her album This Is Me... Then, released that year, was influenced by her public relationship with actor Ben Affleck at the time and served as a snapshot of that specific moment in Lopez’s career.
Twenty-two years later, J. Lo is bringing her and Affleck’s love story full circle with This Is Me... Now, the sequel to her smash third album and her first LP in nearly a decade. The music is just one piece of the puzzle, however. This Is Me... Now: A Love Story, an accompanying film inspired by Lopez’s trials and tribulations in love over the past two decades, is also out today on Prime Video. And on Feb. 27, she’ll be releasing The Greatest Love Story Never Told, a documentary chronicling the creation of the album as well as her and Affleck’s rekindled romance and how it played a part in the writing and recording process.
The album’s title track, which J. Lo recently performed on Saturday Night Live, opens the project, while it ends with “Greatest Love Story Never Told.” Both songs, she told Apple Music, were recorded on the first day she embarked on this new album journey, and she knew then that she wanted them to be the bookends of the story she told. Lopez teamed up with other artists like Latto for a remix of lead single “Can’t Get Enough,” which the two performed together on SNL, and Anuel AA on the remix for “Rebound,” but J. Lo is the sole star on the project with no other featured artists. The album even contains a sequel to “Dear Ben,” her love letter to Affleck from This Is Me... Then, fittingly titled “Dear Ben, Pt. II.”
“I think when you put out any project, you get to a point in your life where you’re not doing it for every single person in the world to have the most beautiful opinion of it,” she told Variety of the album. “But I do think this is a beautiful project. The message is strong and the message is true. I think it’s a true piece of art, and I’m very proud of it.”
Lopez announced yesterday she’s taking the album on the road this summer with the This Is Me... Now Tour across North America. After that, her next musical move remains uncertain, as she revealed to Entertainment Tonight that This Is Me... Now could be her “last album ever.”
“The truth is I don't even know if I'll ever make another album after this. It’s such the kind of quintessential kind of Jennifer Lopez, J.Lo project and I really feel very fulfilled, so they really will be collector’s items at a certain point,” she said.
Regardless of the future, Lopez has found peace with her present. “Now I feel like because Ben and I have rediscovered each other — and now that we’re married — I have something to offer,” she told Variety. “This is the defining piece of work that’s going to close that chapter so I can move on to the next part of my life.”
