Jennifer Lopez has, at least this Wednesday, reasons to celebrate. The singer, actress, producer and global star turns 55 this July 24, in what is being a long but also bittersweet celebration. The artist kicked off the festivities this past weekend in the luxurious Hamptons area with a party on Saturday and a lunch at an Italian restaurant on Sunday that, like everything for her these past few months, was also complicated: she was surrounded by her children, Max and Emme, her sister Lynda, some friends like her manager, Benny Medina, and the actress Sarah Jessica Parker… but her still husband, the actor Ben Affleck, was not with her. A good example of how Lopez reaches 55, at a complicated time, both personally and in the public eye.
Lopez has been smiling for months in front of photographers, putting on a good face for journalists, fans who ask for autographs, and everyone who asks her how she is and what she is working on. But she avoids the same question with all of them: how her marriage is going. Some reporters tried to ask her this question during the promotion of her film. Atlas at the end of May, but their co-star, actor Simu Liu, stopped them from having to deal with it. But it is difficult to put a stop to it. The crisis is no longer just a rumor in the tabloids, nor something that can be seen on the star’s recently sad face. The signs are too many and already quite clear.
It was in mid-May when those who constantly follow them realized that the couple had not been seen in public, immersed in their perennial cuddles, since March. The first big clue is that she attended the important Met Gala, which she also sponsored, without him, in a gesture that surprised everyone. She posed on the steps of the New York museum alone, thinner than ever (she herself confirmed this, stating that she does a lot of exercise because of the filming she is involved in) and only with a half smile. That was the first moment in which their relationship was put in the spotlight and, months later, it has not stopped being so.
It was at the end of that same May when one of her worst professional moments in years arrived: the cancellation of her tour. In mid-February the artist released This Is Me… Now (This is me now), a new album with 13 songs that passed through the charts with more pain than glory. In addition, the album was accompanied by a kind of long video clip called This Is Me… Now: A Love Story where all the songs from the album were brought together, almost a musical film. After that came the documentary of the two previous ones, The Greatest Love Story Never Toldwhere Lopez also revealed her romance with Affleck. She invested more than 20 million euros in all of it, with little success among the public and even less among critics. When the time came for the tour, she had sold a handful of tickets, and she stated that she was “going to take some time to be with her children, her family and her close friends.” In addition to losing the public’s favor, once again, the marital crisis was making itself felt.
Then she began to see the two of them more and more, but always without each other’s company. He, above all, in Los Angeles; she in California, on the East Coast of the country or traveling, as when in June she went for a few days along the Italian coast with several friends. Meanwhile, the moving trucks were taking Affleck’s personal belongings out of the shared mansion they had bought just a year ago in Beverly Hills to move to another one in the Brentwood neighborhood, closer to his children and his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner.
It was precisely that house, which took months to find and for which she sold hers in Bel-Air, which gave the definitive clue about a breakup that now only needs to be announced. That immense mansion of more than 3,500 square meters and 38,000 of land with 12 bedrooms and 24 bathrooms is for sale. It is no longer just the gossip press, but also the real estate portals that echo the release of the property on the market for 61 million dollars, seven more than it cost a year ago. What was once the love nest of the newlyweds is today a handful of empty walls with its inhabitants, and their respective families, already far away from there.
Lopez’s birthday falls on a couple of occasions that make the celebration even more complicated. July 17 marked two years since the couple tied the knot in a surprise Las Vegas affair; a month later, in late August, they did it again, this time with friends and family at a big party at the actor’s ranch in Savannah, Georgia. But there was no anniversary celebration this year. Nor were they together for her birthday. By the time the third bash comes around, there may be nothing to celebrate.
