What went wrong? Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez‘s split came as a shock to many, but it was actually a long time coming, a source tells Us Weekly exclusively.
“The last time they had seen each other was March 1. They haven’t seen each other since then,” an insider tells Us. “There have been issues in their relationship for a while now.”
On Friday, March 12, Us confirmed that the singer, 51, and the athlete, 45, called off their engagement after nearly four years together. The duo, who announced their engagement in March 2019, were set to get married in Italy in June 2020 but were forced to postpone the nuptials due to the coronavirus pandemic.
One month before their split, the “I’m Real” singer shared that the pair had been going to couples counseling.
“Alex, of all people, was like, ‘I love it. I love being at home. I love doing my Zooms. I love knowing the kids are there, and you’re there all the time,’” the two-time Grammy nominee told Allure magazine in February. “It has been actually really good. We got to work on ourselves. We did therapy. I think it was really helpful for us in our relationship.”
She noted during the interview that pushing back their wedding “was a big deal,” since they had been planning it for so long. “Maybe that wasn’t the right time,” Lopez noted. “You start thinking of all of these things — how everything has its kind of perfect, divine moment.”
The former couple often share photos of each other via social media, and the former baseball player last posted with the singer on February 28. “Perfección,” he captioned a pic of the pair.
However, they have been spending time apart recently due to work. After visiting her on March 1 in the Dominican Republic where she’s shooting her upcoming movie Shotgun Wedding, he returned to Miami, where he is gearing up for the beginning of the MLB preseason.
Lopez, who shares 12-year-old twins Max and Emme with ex-husband Marc Anthony, first began dating Rodriguez in 2017. The former Yankee, for his part, shares daughters Natasha, 16, and Ella, 12, with ex-wife Cynthia Scurtis.
“We’re very similar. We’re really alike in our drive, in our ambition. He’s an athlete. He wanted to be the best. I’m the same way,” the JLo Beauty founder told GQ magazine in 2019. “I just want to be great at what I do. We’re both like that. We’re both super-hard workers. We’re driven by our passions. And we have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. He knows I only have his best interest at heart, and I only want him to thrive and succeed and to be his best self. I believe that he wants that for me. He wants me to be seen and to get what I deserve.”
