A Tour Canceled, a Life Interrupted
Jennifer Lopez made a drastic decision in May 2024 when she pulled the plug on her "This Is Me…Now" tour, telling fans she was "heartsick and devastated." But as she revealed on the "SmartLess" podcast in June 2026, that moment of collapse forced a reckoning she had long avoided.
Sitting still after the cancellation, Lopez issued herself a blunt command: "You need to fucking figure yourself out. What is going on with you? Forget about everybody else. There’s nobody to blame here except yourself in a certain way," she recalled on Pagesix.
The Turning Point
The singer and actress, now 56, described that stark self-assessment as the moment everything shifted. "Not that people don’t behave in a way that’s not great, but what are you doing? What do you have going on? And that was a turning point for me," she said. The end of her marriage to Ben Affleck, finalized in January 2025, had left her untethered, but instead of blaming her ex, she turned inward.
Lopez and Affleck, who first got engaged in 2002 and reunited nearly two decades later, wed in a whirlwind ceremony in July 2022. Their second attempt at love collapsed in early 2024 when Affleck moved out of their shared home, and Lopez abruptly canceled her tour amid swirling separation rumors.
Healing by Looking Within
Lopez explained that her healing process involved recognizing patterns formed in childhood. "Part of being human is… We get these parents; they do the best they can, or they do as much as they can. They form certain parts about ourselves, and then our journey is kind of the undoing and the healing of those things, of the patterns that created," she told the podcast hosts.
Her new mantra became: "Give yourself a little fucking something, like a little love. Stop looking for love in other things and give it to yourself." This shift in perspective, she said, changed how she saw herself and her relationships.
A Different Person
Lopez claims she is no longer the same woman who married Affleck. She now trusts herself more and has stopped being overly critical. "I value myself more," she said, emphasizing that she no longer feels the need to prove her worth. The transformation came as she also navigated an empty nest; her twins, Emme and Max, are preparing for college.
In a September 2025 CBS interview, Lopez had already called the divorce "the best thing that ever happened to me. Because it changed me. It helped me grow in a way that I needed to grow." She acknowledged the stark contrast between her on-set happiness filming "Kiss of the Spider Woman" — a project executive produced by Affleck — and the difficulties at home.
Affleck, for his part, downplayed any drama, saying, "There’s no scandal, no soap opera. It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do." Lopez now insists that she has learned to be happy alone and wishes she had reached this realization sooner.
The podcast appearance marks a rare public reflection on a period Lopez calls deeply personal. With her focus squarely on herself and her children, she seems to have closed a chapter — but the echoes of her turning point continue to resonate.