Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez Have Officially Split — Will She Keep the $1 Million Engagement Ring?
Celebrities break up all the time, and there is certainly no shortage of high-profile celebrity divorces — just ask Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West. Still, when a couple who seemed to be on the track to a fairytale ending call it quits, it draws extra attention. For Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez fans, the news of an official split has been shocking. We’re left with lots of questions about what happened and what the future holds for the stars. One burning question on a lot of people’s minds is what happens to that whopping $1 million engagement ring.
Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez had a long engagement
Jennifer Lopez has certainly garnered headline attention for her amazing musical prowess — and flashy Super Bowl performance — but she’s also gotten a lot of press for her relationships. Over the years, Lopez has seen many engagements and even made it all the way down the aisle on more than one occasion. Previous marriages to Cris Judd and Marc Anthony and a serious relationship with Ben Affleck often kept Lopez on tabloid covers.
It seemed like the star was finally heading to a happily ever after that had evaded her when she began dating Alex Rodriguez. The pair officially confirmed their relationship in spring 2017, according to Elle. Soon, they were gushing about each other in interviews and posting social media pictures to confirm their budding love. By June, they were vacationing together, and things certainly looked to be getting serious.
By the fall of that same year, rumors were spreading that the couple was moving in together, and when they spent the holidays as a couple, they looked like they had found a comfortable groove for sharing their lives. Of course, Lopez started getting questions about whether they were heading down the aisle, but she made it clear she was in no rush to get married again.
That didn’t stop fans from speculating about an engagement in 2018 when Lopez was seen sporting a ring, but it turned out not to be the case. Once the couple shared a photo of them and their blended family of kids together, it seemed inevitable that things would eventually progress, and Lopez dazzled the world with a stunning engagement ring to make it official in March 2019.
The wedding date for Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez never materialized
The logical next question was when the wedding would take place, but fans were left scrambling for an answer. They had apparently planned to tie the knot in June 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic put those plans to rest. Their planned destination wedding in Italy certainly was not safe at the time. When pressed about rescheduling and what the new date would be, the couple was a bit hard to pin down. At one point, they even questioned whether they needed to get married at all, citing their age and their previous marriages.
What happens to that expensive ring?
Stunningly, this isn’t the most expensive engagement ring that Lopez has had to determine how to handle. After her engagement to Ben Affleck ended without a wedding, she was left with a stunning $2.5 million ring. While she never publicly disclosed its fate, sources said at the time that she planned to privately return it to Affleck because it would bring “closure.” Engagement rings are tricky topics, and The Spruce shares that some states require an engagement ring be returned if the marriage doesn’t happen.
These “conditional gift” states make a legal obligation for the bride-not-to-be to hand the gift back over. Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez share multiple homes together — spread out across Florida, California, and New York, according to House Beautiful. Florida and New York are both “conditional gift” states, but California is not.
Instead, California is an “implied conditional gift” state, which means that if the bride-to-be is the one who calls things off, the man who gifted the ring can legally request its return. Whether it is legally mandated or not, etiquette generally dictates that the best course of action is to give the ring back when the engagement ends. It seems likely that Lopez will be parting ways with the bling.
