During a Sept. 10 conversation with comedian Nikki Glaser published in Interview magazine on Oct. 9, Jennifer Lopez opened up about her life after separating from her estranged husband, actor Ben Affleck.
As it’s been previously reported, Lopez filed for divorce from Affleck first on Aug. 20 without using a lawyer, People reported. An unusual move by someone seeking to legally end a marriage.
Lopez and Affleck married in 2022 after rekindling their romance in 2021 following the end of their first engagement in 2003.
In court documents, Lopez listed their date of separation as April 26.
In her conversation with Glaser, Lopez said her quest for self-discovery is “a lifelong process.
“I think that’s what I love about life: that there’s no arrival point,” she continued. “There’s only getting better and growing if you want to. It’s either growing or dying, and I don’t want to do the dying part.”
Throughout the journey, Lopez admitted there were “times when I thought I figured it out, and then life goes, ‘Let’s send you another thing and see if you fall for it. Let’s see if you really have learned that lesson.’ And I hadn’t.”
And while the performer said she’s doing the best she can to navigate life’s many unknowns and the highs and the lows, Lopez said she’s “excited” to do life on her own for a while.
“Yes, I’m not looking for anybody, because everything that I’ve done over the past 25, 30 years, being in these different challenging situations, what can I do when it’s just me flying on my own … what if I’m just free?” Lopez continued.
“The work is figuring yourself out. It’s looking back at the feelings underneath and the belief systems that we have about ourselves that make us make certain choices and create certain patterns in our life.”
Lopez said it’s when life “blows up in your face again” that you have to admit to yourself that you still have work to do.
“When you get to a point where you think that you’ve learned the lessons, and then it blows up in your face again, you realize, ‘Okay, I haven’t, so what is it that I need to look at right now?’ I would say, never stop looking inward, because it’s so easy to blame everybody else,” Lopez continued.
The mom of two said the only way something else can add to your life is if you are already “healthy” and “complete.”
“You have to be healthy. You have to be complete, if you want something that’s more complete. You have to be good on your own. I thought I learned that, but I didn’t,” she told Glaser.
“And then, this summer, I had to be like, ‘I need to go off and be on my own. I want to prove to myself that I can do that.'”
Lopez admitted, however, how hard was to really be on her own.
“It feels lonely, unfamiliar, scary,” she added. “It feels sad. It feels desperate. But when you sit in those feelings and go, ‘These things are not going to kill me,’ it’s like actually, I am capable of joy and happiness all by myself… Being in a relationship doesn’t define me.”