Jennifer Lopez celebrated her 'single era' on US television, telling Jimmy Kimmel Live! on 27 May in Los Angeles that she has 'been doing it all wrong' when it comes to relationships, even as reports claim ex-fiancé Alex Rodriguez has quietly been back in touch.
Lopez, 56, has rarely been without a partner in the three decades since Selena turned her into a global star. She finalised her divorce from Ben Affleck in 2024 after a high-profile reunion and whirlwind Las Vegas wedding in 2022, closing the chapter on one of Hollywood's most dissected love stories.
Before Affleck, there was a string of serious relationships and marriages that made 'JLo in love' feel almost like a permanent fixture of pop culture.
Sitting opposite Kimmel, Lopez did not duck the suggestion that she has been a serial monogamist. Instead, she leaned into it and then away from it.
'I've been doing it all wrong. I've been doing it all wrong,' she said, repeating herself for emphasis. 'Trust me.'
It was not framed as a confession so much as a verdict on her own romantic patterns, delivered with the practised lightness of someone who knows the internet will pull the quote apart within minutes.
Jennifer Lopez Single Era Comes After Decades Of High-Profile Romance
The news came after a long, winding romantic history that has been lived largely in public and documented in forensic detail.
Lopez's first marriage, to actor Ojani Noa, followed the success of Selena and ended in divorce in January 1998.
A relationship with Sean 'Diddy' Combs lasted for around two years, overlapping with the period when she became both a chart-topping singer and a red-carpet regular.
In 2001, she married dancer Cris Judd; the marriage ended by July 2002. Within months, she was engaged to Ben Affleck, then 30, in the original 'Bennifer' era. The couple postponed their wedding and ultimately called off the engagement in early 2004, one of the defining celebrity break-ups of the early 2000s.
The same year, Lopez married singer Marc Anthony. Over a decade together, they built what looked like a more settled family life and welcomed twins Emme and Max in 2008, before eventually separating. She then spent several years with backup dancer Casper Smart, from 2011 to 2016.
It was in 2017 that she began dating former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez. The relationship delivered glossy magazine covers, blended-family beach photos and, in 2019, an engagement ring. By 2021, that engagement was off. Not long afterwards, Lopez circled back to Affleck, marrying him in Las Vegas in July 2022. Two years later, they were done.
Against that backdrop, her enthusiasm for being alone sounded almost radical. Asked by Kimmel whether she would consider becoming the next Bachelorette, Lopez shut the idea down without hesitation. 'I'm not doing anything to ruin how I feel right now... It's fantastic,' she replied.
She added later: 'I'll meet somebody somewhere one day if they're good enough. I'm good. I'm good right now where I'm at.' There was no misty-eyed nostalgia about past loves, no carefully hedged reference to 'the right person at the right time.' Just a blunt insistence that solitude, for once, suits her.
Alex Rodriguez And The Jennifer Lopez Single Era
If Lopez sounds finished with the idea of rushing into another relationship, not everyone from her romantic past appears quite so settled.
Gossip columnist Rob Shuter reported on Thursday, 28 May, in his Naughty But Nice Substack newsletter, that Alex Rodriguez had reached out to Lopez following his split from fitness instructor Jaclyn Cordeiro.
Shuter wrote that 'Alex never fully got over Jennifer' and claimed 'the relationship meant everything to him, and once he became single again, reaching out felt inevitable.'
At this stage, nothing about any contact between Lopez and Rodriguez has been confirmed by either party, so the suggestion of renewed communication remains unverified and should be taken with a grain of salt. There is no indication Lopez is interested in revisiting the relationship, and her public comments point in the opposite direction.
Still, Shuter's claim underlines how persistent the Lopez–Rodriguez narrative remains, even three years after their engagement ended.
Their time together was highly branded and mutually beneficial: a sports icon and a pop superstar presenting a united, aspirational front. The idea that Rodriguez might glance back as Lopez leans defiantly into being single is irresistible fodder for celebrity watchers.
What Lopez seems to be signalling, though, is a desire to step off the carousel. In a career built on reinvention, this version of JLo, the one saying no to franchise dating shows, no to hasty rebounds, and no, at least for now, to being half of a power couple, may be the most unfamiliar of all.
Whether that resolve holds when the cameras are off is something only she will know. On Wednesday night, in front of Kimmel and a studio audience, she looked unusually at ease with not knowing.
