When Jennifer Lopez said she wanted to take Ben Affleck’s surname after marriage: ‘It’s not bad. I’ll take it’

Singer-actor Jennifer Lopez, who recently tied the knot with actor Ben Affleck, had once revealed that she planned to change her name after wedding. In an old interview, Jennifer had said that she would retain her maiden name professionally. Jennifer and Ben Affleck got married on Saturday in a late-night Las Vegas drive-through chapel. (Also Read | It took 20 years for Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck to get married)

The singer announced their marriage on Sunday in her newsletter for fans with the heading “We did it.” She initially made their engagement public in April in the same newsletter, “On the J Lo.” “Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient,” Jennifer wrote in a message signed Jennifer Lynn Affleck.

Jennifer and Ben dated in the early 2000s before rekindling their romance last year. In 2003, while cooking with Pat O’Brien as part of Ben & Jen: A Dateline Special, he asked her what will be her name a week after she gets married. She replied, “What do you think my name will be? Am I gonna change it professionally you mean? No, I think I’m going to stay with Jennifer Lopez, but my name will be Jennifer Affleck, obviously.”

Pat then joked that if her name and Ben’s surname are put together it comes out as ‘Jaff’. Repeating it, Jennifer said, “Jaff. It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but you’ve gotta make sacrifices.” When Pat said that ‘Jennifer Affleck is a good name’, she replied, “It’s not bad. I’ll take it.”

In her newsletter, Jennifer also wrote that the couple flew to Las Vegas on Saturday, stood in line for their license with four other couples and were wed just after midnight at A Little White Wedding Chapel, a chapel boasting a drive-through “tunnel of love.” She said a Bluetooth speaker played their brief march down the aisle and called it the best night of their lives.

“Stick around long enough and maybe you’ll find the best moment of your life in a drive-through in Las Vegas at 12:30 in the morning in the tunnel of love drive-through with your kids and the one you’ll spend forever with,” Jennifer said. News of their nuptials was first heard on Sunday after the Clark County clerk’s office in Nevada showed that the pair obtained a marriage license that was processed Saturday. The marriage license filing showed that she planned to take the name, Jennifer Affleck.

Jennifer and Ben starred together in 2003’s Gigli and 2004’s Jersey Girl. Around that time, they became engaged but never wed. Ben married Jennifer Garner in 2005, with whom he shares three children. They divorced in 2018.

Jennifer Lopez has been married three times before. She was briefly married to Ojani Noa from 1997-1998 and to Cris Judd from 2001-2003. She and singer Marc Anthony were married for a decade after wedding in 2004 and share 14-year-old twins together.

(With AP inputs