Jennifer Lopez

Lopez’s personal life has attracted widespread media attention. From February 22, 1997, to January 1998, she was married to Cuban waiter Ojani Noa. Since their brief marriage, Lopez has endured many legal troubles regarding her relationship with Noa. In April 2006, she sued to prevent him from publishing a book about their marriage, contending that it violated their confidentiality agreement. The following year, a court-appointed arbitrator issued a permanent injunction forbidding Noa from “criticizing, denigrating, casting in a negative light or otherwise disparaging” Lopez. She was awarded $545,000 in compensatory damages and Noa was ordered to hand over all copies of materials related to the book to Lopez or her attorney. A lawsuit regarding a compromising private honeymoon video in Noa’s possession is presently running.

While working on her first album, On the 6, Lopez began dating record producer and rapper Sean Combs. On December 27, 1999, the couple was arrested along with two others in connection with a shooting outside a Times Square club. They were charged with criminal possession of a weapon as well as stolen property. Lopez was soon exonerated, having had nothing to do with the crime. However, Combs was charged and indicted by a Manhattan grand jury. After leaving Combs, Lopez developed a relationship with former back-up dancer Cris Judd, to whom she was married from September 29, 2001, to June 2002. Following her second divorce due to irreconcilable differences, she commenced a high-profile relationship with actor and director Ben Affleck, to whom she became engaged in November 2002. The media began to refer to them as “Bennifer”, and they became a prominent supercouple in the media and popular culture. Bennifer became a popular term, which was eventually entered into urban dictionaries and neologism dictionaries as notable, as the name blend started the trend of other celebrity couples being referred to by the combination of their first names. The couple postponed their nuptials indefinitely a day prior to the planned ceremony in September 2003, citing the media’s interference with the event as the reason.

Lopez’s break-up with Affleck in January 2004 was her “first real heartbreak”. She described her next relationship, with her longtime friend, Marc Anthony (real name: Marco Antonio Muñiz), as an attempt to “find someone who could make me feel loved and wanted in my loneliest hour … Thinking back, maybe deep down I knew that this was a Band-Aid on the cut.” She married Anthony that June, and lived in Brookville, New York. Two men attempted to ransom a private wedding video that was stolen from the couple for one million dollars; however, they were arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of conspiracy, attempted grand larceny and possession of stolen property. On November 7, 2007, during the final night of their co-headlining tour, Lopez and Anthony officially confirmed that they were expecting their first child. The announcement ended months of speculation over the pregnancy. Her father confirmed that the couple were expecting twins, revealing that it runs in the family: “My sister also had twins, so it’s a hereditary thing.” Lopez, who is a Roman Catholic, has stated that her faith discouraged her from pursuing in vitro fertilization treatment while trying to get pregnant.

Lopez gave birth to a son and a daughter on Long Island, on February 22, 2008. The twins were introduced in the March 11, 2008, issue of People, for which the magazine paid a reported $6 million; the photographs of the twins became the most expensive celebrity picture ever taken at the time. Three years later in July 2011, the couple announced their split, with Anthony filing for divorce in April 2012. Their divorce was finalized on June 16, 2014, with Lopez retaining primary physical custody of the two children. On December 31, 2014, she legally changed her name back to Jennifer Lopez, dropping Anthony’s last name (Muñiz).

Lopez had an on-off relationship with her former backup dancer Casper Smart from October 2011 to August 2016.

In February 2017, she began dating former New York Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez. In March 2019, they announced their engagement.

In March 2018, Lopez opened up about her own Me Too movement story of being sexually harassed by a director early on in her career, when she was asked to take her top off during one of her first films. Lopez has also been an active advocate for the Time’s Up movement.