Jennifer Lopez is reflecting on a “tough time” in her life more than a year after filing for divorce from Ben Affleck.

The “Jenny from the Block” singer, 56, opened up about her divorce in an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” while discussing her role in the buzzy movie musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” which hits theaters on Oct. 10. The film wrapped production about two months before Lopez filed for divorce from Affleck in August 2024.

When asked how she dealt with turmoil in her personal life around the time she was shooting the movie, Lopez laughed as she responded, “Barely. It was tough. It was a tough time.” She added that making the film provided a refuge during the difficult period.

“It was the best and the worst of times,” she said. “Every moment on set, and every moment I was doing this role, I was so happy. And then back home, it was not great. It was like, ‘Oh, how do I reconcile this?’

“But you get through it. Honestly, I have to say, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it changed me − it didn’t change me, it helped me grow in a way that I needed to grow, become more self-aware. I’m a different person now than I was last year.”

Lopez, who wrapped her Up All Night tour in August, also said she’s in a “very good” place and is “able to enjoy things more” now.

Lopez and Affleck married in 2022 after rekindling their relationship the previous year. The two originally dated in the 2000s and became a tabloid fixture, famously earning the nickname “Bennifer.” After getting engaged in 2002, they postponed the wedding in 2003 amid excessive media attention before later splitting.

After their breakup, Lopez was married to Marc Anthony from 2004 to 2014 and engaged to Alex Rodriguez from 2019 to 2021. Affleck, meanwhile, was married to Jennifer Garner from 2005 to 2018.

Lopez and Affleck finalized their divorce in January 2025.

Lopez stars as fictional movie star Ingrid Luna in “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” an adaptation of the stage musical of the same name. Diego Luna and Tonatiuh also star. The “Let’s Get Loud” singer has described the film as a dream project, as she’s long wanted to star in a movie musical.

Artists Equity, the production company founded by Affleck and Matt Damon, financed “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” and Lopez told CBS it would not have been made without her ex-husband.

“I’ll always give him that credit,” she said.

Affleck previously said in a March interview with GQ that there was “no scandal” behind his and Lopez’s divorce.

“The truth is, when you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’ Well, there is no: ‘This is what happened.’ It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do,” he said. “And as you get older, this is true for me, I assume it’s true for most people, there is no ‘So-and-so did this’ or ‘This was the big event.’ ”

Jennifer Lopez not thinking about possible Oscar nod: ‘I learned my lesson’

Lopez has been earning Academy Awards buzz ever since “Kiss of the Spider Woman” premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January. But she told “CBS Sunday Morning” that she isn’t thinking about the possibility of an Oscar nod, quipping, “I learned my lesson last time.”

In 2019, Lopez was widely predicted to receive an Academy Award nomination for her role in “Hustlers” but was unexpectedly snubbed. She later opened up about being hurt by the exclusion in the 2022 documentary “Halftime,” saying that she “really started to think I was going to get nominated” and “got my hopes up.”

“It’s great to be in the conversation that you’re doing work that people recognize and that they love,” she told CBS. “That’s enough. It’s not that you can’t want more, or that you don’t want to stand up there and say thank you. Of course we all want that. But I realized that I don’t need it in the way that maybe I thought when I was younger. Not that I wouldn’t love it!”.

Ben Affleck breaks silence on Jennifer Lopez divorce

The “Accountant 2” star, 52, broke his silence about his divorce from Jennifer Lopez in an interview with GQ published Tuesday. He said he has “nothing but respect” for the “Jenny from the Block” singer and stressed that there was no single, dramatic event that ended their marriage.

“There’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue,” he told the outlet. “The truth is, when you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’ Well, there is no: ‘This is what happened.’ It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do. And as you get older, this is true for me, I assume it’s true for most people, there is no ‘So-and-so did this’ or ‘This was the big event.'”

He continued, “It’s really, it sounds more like a couple’s therapy session, which — you would tune out of someone else’s couple’s therapy after a while. For one thing, you start going, ‘Okay, clearly this person has got these issues. Clearly they have these issues.’ And the reason I don’t want to share that is just sort of embarrassing. It feels vulnerable.”

But Affleck said that while there is “a tendency to look at breakups and want to identify root causes or something,” the truth of his split from Lopez “is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting.”

The Oscar winner also reflected on his participation in Lopez’s 2024 documentary “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” which was released in conjunction with her album “This Is Me… Now.” In the film, Affleck expressed reservations about letting the public in on their relationship, saying in one scene, “It’s the greatest love story never told, and if you’re making a record about it, that seems kind of like telling it.”

Speaking to GQ, Affleck acknowledged that “my temperament is to be a little bit more reserved and private” than Lopez. At the same time, he emphasized that this isn’t what led to their split.

“I think it’s important to say that wasn’t the cause of some major fracture,” he said. “It’s not like you can watch that documentary and go, ‘Oh, now I understand the issues that these two had.'”

Affleck and Lopez met working on the romantic comedy “Gigli” and got engaged in 2002, but they called off the wedding in 2003, citing excessive media attention. They both went on to tie the knot with and split from other people, with Lopez marrying Marc Anthony in 2004 and Affleck marrying Jennifer Garner in 2005. Lopez also got engaged to Alex Rodriguez in 2019, but they did not marry.

Almost two decades after their split, Affleck and Lopez rekindled their relationship in 2021 and tied the knot the following year. But in 2024, the “Jenny from the Block” singer filed for divorce from Affleck in Los Angeles Superior Court on their second wedding anniversary. The date of separation was listed as April 26, and the divorce was finalized this January.

In May, Lopez canceled her summer North American tour, saying she would be taking time “to be with her children, family and close friends.” She said at the time she was “completely heartsick and devastated” but would not “do this if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary.”

In a conversation with Nikki Glaser for Interview Magazine in October, Lopez opened up about feeling like her whole “world exploded.”

“When your whole house blows up, you’re standing there in the rubble going, ‘How do I not ever let that happen again?'” she said. “And then you start examining it little by little saying, ‘Okay, I did this, this was my part in it, this was what I should have seen early on, this is what I didn’t look at.’ Those things are what really are the lessons.”

But Lopez continued that she is “capable of joy and happiness all by myself,” adding, “Being in a relationship doesn’t define me. I can’t be looking for happiness in other people. I have to have happiness within myself. I used to say I’m a happy person, but was still looking for something for somebody else to fill, and it’s just like, ‘No, I’m actually good.'”