Jennifer Lopez Almost Walked Away From Her Career After Breaking up With Ben Affleck

Jennifer Lopez ’s first relationship and break-up with Ben Affleck had a sizable impact on both of their careers. Affleck stepped away from the spotlight for quite some time after the controversy his time with Lopez caused. There was a moment Lopez considered going on a similar route as well, as she wondered if she should leave her own career behind.

Jennifer Lopez was talked out of quitting Hollywood

Back in the 2000s, Lopez and Affleck tried to stay together despite the negative publicity surrounding their relationship. Affleck felt their relationship coincided with the rise of tabloid journalism. So he and Lopez were the focus of many sensational stories and gossip that diminished the good will they had with the public. After the pair split, Affleck was also coming off of several failed movies in a row. Given how both his personal and professional life managed, he figured it was a good idea to take a long hiatus from Hollywood.

“I think I just ran away. You can only handle so much. I moved for a while to this place in Georgia that I have, was able to get away, by and large, from stuff. Come up with a plan for how to do something with my life that doesn’t put me in the crosshairs of this sort of thing,” Affleck said in a 2012 interview with GQ .

Lopez also thought about leaving the spotlight. But in her interview with NPR , she might’ve planned on a more permanent break.

“I think after, like, when the tabloids started and Ben and I were on the tabloids and then we broke up and that fell apart,” she said. “And then I was trying to kind of, like, get my career back to get – you know, like, there was a time when everything just felt like it was – I was like maybe I just shouldn’t do this anymore, maybe I should just stop singing and stop making movies and do something else. And you just – you get to those crossroads in your life.”

But Lopez asserted that a conversation with actor Penelope Cruz helped convince her to stay in the industry.

“Yeah, we were on a plane together, and we started talking, and I was just like, I just don’t know. And she was like, you are crazy. You have to – no, Jennifer, we all look at you, and we – and I was like, wow. And it meant a lot to me. And there was a few people like that over time who, you know, just – they say things to you in passing, and it affects you so much,” she remembered.

Ben Affleck recently described Jennifer Lopez’s fame as ‘bananas’

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It seemed both Lopez and Affleck were able to bounce back career-wise after their first break-up. Decades later, they’d famously give their relationship another shot, even managing to seal the deal this time with marriage. But although famous in his own right, Affleck recently confided that his fame wasn’t quite on the same level as his wife’s. In a recent interview on Kevin Hart’s Hart to Heart , Affleck asserted that there was a different level of excitement fans normally had for Lopez.

“We went somewhere with [Jennifer]—I can’t remember because she’s so famous , and she creates this—people love her. And she really represents something important to people,” he said.

In some instances, even Affleck wasn’t accustomed to the amount of attention that Lopez attracted.

“We get out of the car, we were going to a play, and I was like, ‘F*** it, babe, we’re going to be late, we gotta walk a block and a half.’ [Lopez] was like, ‘Alright,’ she didn’t say s***,” he said.

“We get out with her, all the kids, through Times Square, and the s*** was like f***ing bananas,“ Affleck continued. “I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ There was a lady, she was smoking weed, in a full purple skintight suit—she’s a heavy lady—and she starts running backwards filming, going ‘J.Lo’ Like a herald. Then gets everyone else, they’re all tourists, whatever, just moving.”