Jennifer Lopez Revealed Why She Took Ben Affleck’s Last Name
In 2022, Jennifer Lopez announced that not only had she married Ben Affleck, but she had taken his last name. This came as a surprise — she’s been known as J.Lo for much of her career — and even drew some ire. Lopez explained why she wanted to legally change her name after the wedding.
Jennifer Lopez took Ben Affleck’s last name when they married
In July 2022, Lopez and Affleck married in a Las Vegas ceremony after getting back together in 2021. Their marriage put a neat bow on their two-decade-long romantic saga.
“We did it. Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient,” Lopez wrote in her newsletter, On the JLo. “Twenty years patient.”
Lopez detailed the night in her newsletter, and signed off as “Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck.” She had taken Affleck’s last name, which some saw as disappointing. The New York Times published an opinion piece by author Jennifer Weiner, in which she wrote that “given the cringe-y history behind the practice, a woman taking her husband’s last name feels to me like a submission.” Lopez found the disappointment surprising.
“What? Really?” she asked Vogue. “People are still going to call me Jennifer Lopez. But my legal name will be Mrs. Affleck because we’re joined together. We’re husband and wife. I’m proud of that. I don’t think that’s a problem.”
She viewed the act of taking his name as a romantic gesture.
“I’m very much in control of my own life and destiny and feel empowered as a woman and as a person. I can understand that people have their feelings about it, and that’s okay, too,” she said. “But if you want to know how I feel about it, I just feel like it’s romantic. It still carries tradition and romance to me, and maybe I’m just that kind of girl.”
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck nearly married in 2004
Lopez and Affleck were previously engaged in 2002, but they postponed their 2003 wedding, citing too much media attention. Not long afterward, the pair announced that they had broken up.
“I knew that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life. I knew that. But it didn’t feel like we were going to make it, and so it scared me,” Lopez said in an Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe (via Extra). It was very hard … Then we went and we both found other people and had beautiful children and had other families and had other relationships after that, and it wasn’t until both of us had done, you know, for me, a lot of work and gotten to a place where I was like, you know what, I’m totally good on my own. That’s when he showed back up.”
How many times has Jennifer Lopez been married?
Affleck married Lopez in 2022, making him her fourth husband. She married for the first time in 1997. She wed actor and model Ojani Noa, but they divorced less than a year later.
In 2001, Lopez married dancer Cris Judd after meeting him on the set of her “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” music video. They divorced in 2003.
In 2004, following her split from Affleck, Lopez married singer Marc Anthony. The couple welcomed twins in 2008. Anthony filed for divorce in 2012, and they finalized their split in 2014.
