Jennifer Lopez reflects on Ben Affleck relationship being ‘destroyed from the inside out’

Singer said the way the couple was publicly criticised was ‘brutal’

Jennifer Lopez has opened up about her experiences dating Ben Affleck – both in the Noughties and now.

The singer got back together with the actor last spring after ending her engagement to baseball player Alex Rodriguez.

Their reunion came 17 years after the pair first dated and got engaged, before calling off the wedding and splitting up.

When Lopez and Affleck dated the first time around, South Park called her a “mean-spirited b****” in an episode that mocked her Latin heritage and Conan O’Brien said that, as stand-ins for the couple in a sketch, he’d cast “our script intern” as Affleck and “our cleaning lady” as Lopez.

“It was brutal,” Lopez told Rolling Stone, reflecting on that time. “It was brutal. It’s one of those things that you bury very deeply so you can move on and get about your business.”

She added: “It’s funny because Ben and I were together, and we were so in love. It was one of the happiest times of my life.

“But also, there was this other thing happening where we were being criticised, and it really destroyed our relationship from the inside out, because we were just too young to understand at that time what were really the most important things in life.”

Affleck and Lopez (Getty Images)

Lopez said she does not see the relationship ending in the same way this time.

“I don’t think we would have got back together if we thought that was where it was headed,” she said.

“We feel like what we found again is so much more important, and how we protect that and how we live our lives – what to share, what not to share – is the balance that we have now, the benefit of experience and the wisdom that we gained over the years.”