Jennifer Lopez, the polymath whose acting, directing, and musical aspirations have been on overdrive in 2024, is finally taking a break. After a year that saw the release of her self-financed Amazon movie/visual album This Is Me…Now: A Love Story and its accompanying documentary/document of her marriage to Ben Affleck, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, the star has called off the third part of the “This is Me” plan. In a statement posted to her website Friday, Lopez announced that the multi-city concert tour, which was most recently titled “This Is Me… Live,” has been canceled, and direct ticket purchasers will be fully refunded.
After tapping on an “Important Announcement” link, visitors to onthejlo.com are able to view a message reading “Representatives for Live Nation announced today that the Jennifer Lopez US Summer 2024 Tour ‘THIS IS ME…LIVE’ is canceled, citing … ‘Jennifer is taking time off to be with her children, family and close friends.’”
“For those who purchased through Ticketmaster, tickets will automatically be refunded – there is nothing further fans need to do,” the announcement continued. “For those who purchased via third-party resale sites such as SeatGeek, StubHub, VividSeats, etc. – please reach out to your point purchase for more details.”
Via a separate button entitled “Special Message,” website visitors were told “I am completely heartsick and devastated about letting you down. Please know that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary,”
The message, which is presumably written in Lopez’s voice, continues: “I promise I will make it up to you and we will all be together again. I love you all so much. Until next time…”
Pundits were quick to link the mention of time with family to ongoing speculation about the state of the Affleck/Lopez union. The couple has only been seen together a few times in recent months, and at a media event to promote Atlas, Lopez’s recently released Netflix film, a question about the couple’s less-than-two-year-old marriage was met with rebukes.
“Is your divorce with Ben Affleck real?” asked a reporter at a Mexico City event to promote the streaming sci-fi film, which has a brutal 19 percent score on critical site Rotten Tomatoes.
“These rumors?” the reporter continued. “What is the truth?” Before Lopez could respond, co-star Simu Liu jumped into the fray, snapping “Okay, we’re not doing that.”
Lopez followed up with chiding words of her own, saying, “You know better than that,” to the thus far unnamed reporter.
Given that and the avalanche of headlines dissecting body language, wedding ring placement, and the couple’s individual appearances, many assumed that relationship ills were the cause of the tour cancellation. But it’s worth noting that the tour has been struggling for months: in March, back when the concert series was called “This Is Me… Now,” weak ticket sales prompted cancellations of stops in Cleveland, Nashville, Raleigh, Atlanta, Tampa, New Orleans, and Houston, Variety reported at the time.
Significant numbers of tickets to the tour’s remaining 30 shows remained unsold as of early April, and later that month, the tour’s name was quietly changed to “This Is Me… Live | The Greatest Hits.”
According to Variety, “sources close to Lopez insisted that the tour was not being canceled due to poor ticket sales,” but did not specify a different reason, and representatives for Lopez have not responded to Vanity Fair‘s request for comment as of publication time. A look at seating charts from a sample of the planned tour dates between June and August showed a notable number of available seats as of Friday, May 31.
Regardless of the reason, the cancellation is a muffled end to what began as a splashy “surrealistic magical odyssey” that cost Lopez at least $20 million to mount. But as VF‘s Richard Lawson noted in his review of the film version of This Is Me… Now, if nothing else, the movie underscores that “Lopez’s true calling is as but a humble movie star.” Perhaps the sales for her planned tour convinced the actor/dancer/entrepreneur of that, too.
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