Jennifer Lopez broke down in tears at her film premiere as she paid an emotional tribute to her husband Ben Affleck for ‘inspiring’ her life and career, saying to him: ‘Thank you for believing in me.’

The singer and actress, 54, was speaking at the premiere of her new film This is Me… Now: A Love Story, an accompaniment to her ninth album This Is Me… Now which released on Friday.

J.Lo’s Prime Video film is already receiving damning reviews, despite its eye-watering $20 million budget, entirely fronted by her, but she put it all out of her mind as she shared the sweet words.

In a clip uploaded to Instagram of Jennifer on stage, the singer said: ‘[Ben is] the person who inspired this for me. Who has inspired me my whole life. He inspired an album 20 years ago, and I know that he hates that I’m doing this right now.’

The album Jennifer is referring to is 2002’s This Is Me… Then, released just months after she began dating Ben. She dedicated it to him, writing: ‘You are my life… my sole inspiration for every lyric, every emotion, every bit of feeling on this record.’

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Jennifer Lopez, 54, broke down in tears over Ben Affleck as she paid emotional tribute to her husband for ‘inspiring’ her life and career, saying to him: ‘Thank you for believing in me’

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The actress was speaking at the premiere of her new film This is Me… Now: A Love Story, which she attended with Ben, 51, an accompaniment to her ninth album This Is Me… Now

Jennifer continued: ‘He’s just like “Please, shut up” – no! And I say no. I say I love you, and thank you for believing in me, and helping me believe in myself and helping me to grown every single day.

‘Thank you for the family that we’ve created, and our children, and everything that you do for me. You’ll never know what it is to be able to share this lifetime and have you be my love. Thank you.’

And Jennifer isn’t stopping at just an album and a 65-minute film. She is also releasing a documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, detailing the arduous journey to completion of both projects, and will embark on a 30-city American tour.

Two days after her premiere, Jennifer told The Today Show that This Is Me… Now tour that will kick off in June and finish on August 31. It will be her first tour in 12 years, and tickets go on sale on February 20.

It comes after Ben was left unimpressed when Jennifer exposed the numerous sweet and passionate love letters Ben had written to her during round one of their relationship from 2002 to 2004.

To help make her album, Jennifer decided to dig out the letters and share them with her songwriters to inspire them and the documentary Ben walked in on strangers reading his private thoughts from decades ago.

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

This Is Me… Now: A Love Story is a highly visual and musical reimagining of her publicly scrutinized love life. It stars Jennifer and Ben as well as Sofia Vergara, Trevor Noah and Sadhguru – and it almost starred a Kardashian, too.

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This Is Me… Now: A Love Story is a highly visual and musical reimagining of her publicly scrutinized love life