Jennifer Lopez | Valerie Macon//AFP via Getty Images)
Jennifer Lopez returned Feb. 16 with This Is Me... Now, the spiritual successor to her 2002 breakout album This Is Me... Then and a celebration of the journey she’s traveled in the two decades since. Just like the original album, the new record captured her whirlwind relationship with actor Ben Affleck, this time when they rekindled their romance and got back together in 2021. In This Is Me... Now: A Love Story, released the same day, Lopez told a semi-autobiographical story of her life’s ups and downs through the songs on the album.
The third and final part of the This Is Me... Now trilogy, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, is out now on Prime Video. The documentary chronicles the making of the album and accompanying musical film, which Lopez financed herself to the tune of $20 million. Affleck himself inspired the title, referring to the letters he wrote to Lopez decades ago—which make an appearance in the new documentary—as “the greatest love story never told.”
The documentary gives an inside look at the rocky road to release for the massive musical endeavor earlier this month, which included deals to finance the project falling through and celebrities from Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande to Jason Momoa and Snoop Dogg being unavailable to appear in the film. Much like her 2022 documentary Halftime, which highlighted her intense preparation for the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show, J. Lo’s work ethic and refusal to give up in the face of repeated “no”s is on full display in the new behind-the-scenes movie. She also embraces her legend status in the documentary, acknowledging that at this point she doesn’t have to make a new album or a huge new movie herself, but she simply wants to.
For Lopez, the This Is Me... Now extravaganza serves as a culmination of her fated reunion with Affleck, fully illustrating on screen the love that they felt for each other years ago when she recorded This Is Me... Then.
“This is the defining piece of work that’s going to close that chapter so I can move on to the next part of my life,” she told Variety of the massive undertaking. Seeing as the project is a commemoration of that love, having Affleck as a writer on the film script in addition to appearing in it was a no-brainer. “Nobody knows me or my story better than him,” she told Access Hollywood. “He knew me then; he knows me now. This is me now.”
Whether this really is Lopez’s final album, as she’s previously hinted, remains to be seen. The final part of the This Is Me... Now saga kicks off this summer when she embarks across North America for This Is Me... Now: The Tour.
