Jane Fonda Warned Jennifer Lopez to Not Be so Public With Her Relationship

When Jennifer Lopez began working on her film This Is Me Now: A Love Story, she reached out to her former Monster In Law co-star, Jane Fonda. Fonda would go on to appear in Lopez’s film, but she had a few concerns about it. The movie, which took inspiration from Lopez’s real-life relationship with Ben Affleck, felt a bit too personal to Fonda. She worried about the way this would impact their newly rekindled romance.

Not long after Lopez and Affleck married in 2022, the former reached out to Fonda about appearing in This Is Me Now: A Love Story. Before accepting the part, Fonda reached out to Lopez’s manager, Benny Medina, with concerns.

“I believe that everyone in the entire world is pulling for this relationship and this love,” Medina recalled Fonda saying, per Variety. “And the idea of how you present that is so sacrosanct, so important. It should be handled in a way that you aren’t overly flaunting it, so much so that it creates any form of criticism or resentment.”

Later, Fonda and Lopez talked. In the conversation, which appeared in the documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, Fonda expressed her worry that the film could be damaging to Lopez’s new marriage. To her, Lopez seemed more concerned with flaunting her relationship than actually experiencing it.

“I want you to know that I don’t entirely know why, but I feel invested in you and Ben, and I really want this to work,” Fonda said. “However, this is my concern. Like, it feels too much like you’re trying to prove something instead of just living it. You know, every other photograph is the two of you kissing and the two of you hugging.”

Another of Fonda’s concerns stemmed from a viral photo of Lopez and Affleck at the Grammys in 2023. In images from the awards ceremony, Affleck looked exhausted and upset. Social media users were quick to share the photos.

“I got real scared, you know, with all that s*** about the Grammys and he looks unhappy and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, what’s happening?’” Fonda said.

Lopez denied that anything had been wrong with her husband. Affleck said he had enjoyed himself at the ceremony.

“I had a good time at the Grammys,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “My wife was going, and I thought, ‘Well, there’ll be good music. It might be fun.’ At movie award shows, it’s speeches and, like, sound-mixing webinars. But I thought this would be fun.”

While working on This Is Me Now: A Love Story, Affleck also expressed concerns about showing so much of their relationship. The constant media attention on them resulted in their breakup in the early 2000s. He liked keeping certain parts of their lives private.

I did really find the beauty and the poetry and the irony in the fact that it’s the greatest love story never told,” he said. “If you’re making a record about it, that seems kind of like telling it.”