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"I don't think we would have got back together if we thought that was where it was headed."
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are giving it another go after Bennifer 1.0 fizzled out in the early 2000s and, in a new profile with Rolling Stone, J.Lo gave some insight into what's different about dating the "Gone Girl" actor now.
Ben and Jennifer previously dated from 2002 to 2004, after meeting on the set of "Gigli." They even got engaged, before calling it off amid intense public scrutiny on their relationship.
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View StoryThat was a pretty tough time in her life, Lopez said looking back, after Rolling Stone recalled how "South Park" referred to her as a "mean spirited bitch" and Conan O'Brien casting the show's "cleaning lady" as the actress in a sketch at the time.
"It was brutal. It was brutal. It's one of those things that you bury very deeply so you can move on and get about your business," she said. "It's funny because Ben and I were together, and we were so in love. It was one of the happiest times of my life."
"But also, there was this other thing happening where we were being criticized, and it really destroyed our relationship from the inside out," she added, "because we were just too young to understand at that time what were really the most important things in life."
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Clearly, the two are older and hopefully a bit wiser now. When asked why things have turned out so well for the duo this time around, Lopez was very guarded with what she would and wouldn't say.
"I won't talk about it a lot. We've both grown. We're the same, and we're different. And that's what's nice," she told the publication. "Having a second chance at real love  … yeah. Like I said, we learned a lot. We know what's real, what's not real. So it's just — the game has changed. Again, I'm trying not to say too much."
And she didn't. In her last comments in the piece about their relationship, she made it clear she doesn't see another split in their future.
"I don't think we would have got back together if we thought that was where it was headed," she explained. "We feel like what we found again is so much more important, and how we protect that and how we live our lives — what to share, what not to share — is the balance that we have now, the benefit of experience and the wisdom that we gained over the years."
