Something old, something new. Jennifer Lopez’s engagement ring from Ben Affleck looks a lot different than the first one he gave her 20 years ago.
J-Lo announced her engagement to Ben on April 8, 2022, in her newsletter, On the JLo, which included a video message to her fans where she shows off her new diamond engagement ring and says, “You’re perfect.” J-Lo also teased the “major announcement” in a Twitter video. “So I have a really exciting and special story to share,” J-Lo said in the video. She also added a diamond ring emoji to her Twitter bio.
The Hustlers star also used her OnTheJLo newsletter to break the news that she and Ben had a surprise wedding in Las Vegas on July 17, 2022. She described the wonderful details of the wedding: about how they arrived and how it was all so sudden for her. “Last night we flew to Vegas, stood in line for a license with four other couples, all making the same journey to the wedding capital of the world,” she wrote on July 17, 2022. She signed the newsletter, “With love, Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck.” One celebration wasn’t enough for the love birds as they had another wedding! Their second wedding was held on the weekend of August 19, 2022. According to Page Six, the second wedding was held for three days. There was a rehearsal dinner on Friday, and the actual ceremony took place on Saturday. On Sunday, the wedding concluded with a barbecue and picnic on Sunday.
Bennifer’s engagement news also came less than a year after J-Lo and Ben’s reunion. J-Lo and Ben met in 2001 on the set of their movie, Gigli, in which they played love interests. They started dating in 2002, around the time Ben also starred as the love interest in the music video for J-Lo’s song, “Jenny From the Block.” Less than a year later, the two got engaged. Two days before they were scheduled to tie the knot in September 2003, J-Lo and Ben announced that they had postponed their wedding. “Due to the excessive media attention surrounding our wedding, we have decided to postpone the date. When we found ourselves seriously contemplating hiring three separate ‘decoy brides’ at three different locations, we realized that something was awry. We began to feel that the spirit of what should have been the happiest day of our lives could be compromised. We felt what should have been a joyful and sacred day could be spoiled for us, our families and our friends,” they said in a statement at the time.
In January 2004, J-Lo and Ben confirmed they had ended their engagement after two years together. “I am confirming the report that Jennifer Lopez has ended her engagement to Ben Affleck,” J-Lo’s rep said in a statement at the time. “At this difficult time, we ask that you respect her privacy.” In her 2014 memoir, True Love, J-Lo referred to her and Ben’s breakup the as the “first real heartbreak” she experienced. “Ben and I split up at the moment when I thought we were committing to each other forever,” she wrote. “It was my first real heartbreak, it felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest.”
So what does Jennifer Lopez’s engagement ring from Ben Affleck look like compared to the first one he gave her in 2002? Read on for what we know about J-Lo’s new engagement ring from Ben and what it look like vs. her old one.
What does Jennifer Lopez’s engagement ring from Ben Affleck look like?
What does Jennifer Lopez’s engagement ring from Ben Affleck look like? J-Lo’s new engagement ring is 8.5 carats with a natural green diamond center stone. The ring is estimated to cost between $5 million to $10 million. The diamond was sourced by Ilan Portugali of Beverly Hills Diamonds. “Congratulations Ben & @jlo on your engagement. It was my honor to be part of this exciting journey, on a quest to source such an exceptional natural gem for your spectacular engagement ring,” Portugali wrote in an Instagram post after Ben and J-Lo’s engagement. “Among fancy-color diamonds, natural-color green stones with saturated hues are some of the rarest and most sought after. Green color synchronizes Nature & tranquility and represent life, health and associates with luck & prosperity.”
In an interview with Zane Lowe on November 29, 2022, the “On the Floor” singer revealed that Ben engraved the phrase “Not. Going. Anywhere.” on her engagement ring. “That’s how he would sign his emails when we started talking again,” she explained. “Like, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.’” Sources told TMZ that Ben and J-Lo were in “very regular contact by email starting in early February [2021] when she flew to the Caribbean to begin filming Shotgun Wedding.” At the time of their correspondence, J-Lo was still engaged to Alex Rodriguez.
In a past newsletter, J-Lo explained that “green” was her “lucky color,” which is why she wore her iconic Versace green dress to the Grammys in 2000. “I always say the color green is my lucky color,” she wrote at the time. “Maybe you can remember a certain green dress.” She continued, “I’ve realized there are many moments in my life where amazing things happened when I was wearing green.” J-Lo also referenced a painting that hung in her office which featured a green bird perched on someone’s hand with the words “Let Go” on both sides.
“I don’t buy a lot of art, but I bought this,” J-Lo wrote at the time. “One because I love hummingbirds, and two because I love the color green. Birds always fly around me. I’ve always had a special connection with hummingbirds. I realized that a lot of people say they symbolize love. So whenever it feels like wherever I go, they follow me. Whenever I am in a moment of doubt and confusion, one will magically appear by my window, reminding me that the universe will always speak to us if we are open to the signs.”
J-Lo went on to explain that she connected green to good fortune and that the color taught here “there are no coincidences” in life. “It says, ‘Let go,’ which at that moment in my life was something that I really needed to do,” she wrote. “It has become one of my insights and philosophies…that anything you hold on to too tightly you will break. I love in this picture how the hand is wide open, and the bird is just sitting there… Not. Going. Anywhere. It’s about trust. We have to trust that what is for us, will be for us, no matter what. Trust and love.”
In an interview with HollywoodLife, geologist Amanda Smith explained that J-Lo’s diamond has a rare green color due to the process of irradiation from uranium. . “[The stone] has to be irradiated by beta or gamma waves for long enough to turn the stone green for long enough to turn the stone green — the color is from irradiation and it’s incredibly rare,” she said. Green Peridot is also both J-Lo and Ben’s birthstones. (They are both also Leos.)
Image: 2002 RAMEY PHOTO 310-828-3445J/MEGA.
So…how does Jennifer Lopez’s new engagement from Ben Affleck compare to her old one? In November 2002, Ben proposed to J-Lo at his mother Chirstophe Anne Boldt’s home in Boston with a 6.1 carat Harry Winston pink diamond. (Ilan Portugali, the designer of J-Lo’s new engagement ring, used to manage Harry Winston boutique in Beverly Hills, which is where Ben got his old ring.) “He took me back to the house he grew up in.,.he kept saying, ‘you know how much I love you, you know how much I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’” she recalled in an interview with ABC News in 2002.
The pink diamond was set in 18K pink gold and was a radiant cut flanked with two trapezoid white diamond side stones mounted in platinum. J-Lo’s new ring also seems to have trapezoid diamonds and a platinum band, which seems to hint at her past and future with Ben.
Though the source of pink diamonds haven’t been confirmed, many believe the color is caused by “stress” and “strain” from the earth’s mantle, which leads to a distortion in the lattice of the diamond, making them pink. While pink diamonds are also rare, Smith confirmed that they aren’t a rare as green diamonds. The rarest diamonds, however, are red diamonds.
During an interview with ABC News in 2002, J-Lo recalled her engagement to Ben. “We walk up to the house and I see candles up the stairs…he opens the door and it is a blanket — a quilt of rose petals — all over the entire house,” she said. “So many candles, vases with bouquets, and my song ‘I’m Glad’ was playing. I was overwhelmed, I wasn’t expecting it…he was like, ‘my mom helped me do it.’ It was the best day of my life.” The song “I’m Glad,” from her 2002 album This Is Me…Then, was inspired by Ben.
She continued, “It was funny because he had written this letter — he didn’t realize how long it was. He was reading it, reading it — telling me all the stuff he wanted to tell me — at the end he said, ‘will you marry me?’ And he had the ring out, and I didn’t even want to look at it because I could tell the ring was pink. It was too much to handle! It was the most magnificent thing.”
J-Lo’s former publicist, Rob Shuter, revealed in an interview with Access Hollywood in 201 that J-Lo never returned the ring to Ben. “As far as I know, Jen has never returned the ring,” he said. “So, if things move forward with these two, gosh, she’s already got the most beautiful ring I’ve seen…it’s absolutely stunning. I was with her once, and it is blinding.”
Image: Courtesy of Celebra.
For more about J-Lo’s life, check out True Love by Jennifer Lopez. The 2014 memoir covers the “Jenny on the Block” singer’s career and personal life, from her start as a dancer to when she became a mom of two twins with her now-ex-husband Marc Anthony. In the book, which includes more than 200 personal photographs from J-Lo’s never-before-seen collection, the Selena actress writes about how “she confronted her greatest challenges, identified her biggest fears, and ultimately emerged a stronger person than she’s ever been” to become the pop icon we know today.
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