On June 5, 2004, some 40 guests watch as the pop star and actress Jennifer Lopez weds her third husband, the singer Marc Anthony, in an intimate ceremony held in the backyard of Lopez’s home in Los Angeles.
Lopez was born in 1970 in the Bronx, New York, and went on to earn admiration in Hollywood as a “triple threat.” She originally worked as a dancer (most famously as a “Fly Girl” in the popular television series In Living Color), but soon earned notice as an actor for her portrayal of the murdered Tejana pop singer Selena in a 1997 biopic. She developed a reputation as a bankable film star after her role as federal marshal Karen Sisco in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight in 1998, and released her debut Latin pop album in June 1999. Two years later, her album J.Lo debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts just as her romantic comedy The Wedding Planner shot to the top spot at the box office in the first week of its release.
Prior to her marriage to Anthony, Lopez had previously been married to Ojani Noa from February 1997 to January 1998 and to Cris Judd, a dancer who appeared in the video for her hit song “Love Don’t Cost a Thing,” from September 2001 to January 2003. Lopez also had a long-term romance with the rapper and entertainment mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs, and was famously on the scene during the shooting involving his entourage at a New York City nightclub in December 1999. By the time her divorce from Judd was official, Lopez had already announced her engagement to the actor Ben Affleck. Their highly publicized romance–which included a co-starring appearance in the notorious bomb Gigli (2003)–officially ended in early 2004, and Affleck later sold the 6.1 carat, $1.2 million diamond engagement ring he had bought Lopez back to its original seller, Harry Winston.
Six months later, Lopez married Anthony, whose divorce from his wife of four years, the former Miss Universe Dayonara Torres, had been finalized less than a week earlier. Lopez and Anthony, who were both born in New York City, of Puerto Rican descent, first dated in 1999, after her marriage to Noa ended. Anthony and Torres married in 2000, then split for good in late 2003, around the time that Lopez called off her engagement to Affleck.
Appearing on NBC’s Today shortly after their wedding, Anthony refused to confirm that he and Lopez were married, telling the show’s anchorman, Matt Lauer: “I have nothing to say about anything. My life is my life, that’s the only thing I have.” Lopez finally confirmed the marriage publicly in February 2005. The couple’s professional collaborations included Lopez’s first full-length Spanish-language album, Como Ama una Mujer (2007), which Anthony co-produced; and the feature film El Cantante (2007), starring Anthony as the Puerto Rican salsa singer Hector Lavoe and Lopez (who also produced the film) as his wife.
Lopez and Anthony divorced in 2012.
