Jennifer Lopez-Alex Rodriguez: How the fairytale romance faltered

In the latest update, sources told entertainment magazine People that Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez had decided to stay together. "We are working through some things," they said in a joint statement, according to People.

Trouble was reported in yet another Hollywood love story almost succumbing to the pressures of fame, with Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez reportedly calling it quits after a two-year engagement.

The power couple, who were together for four years and had postponed their wedding twice on account of the pandemic, couldn’t survive an alleged cheating scandal that erupted earlier this year. Madison LeCroy told Page Six last month that while she messaged and spoke on the phone with the former New York Yankee, “he’s never physically cheated on his fiancee with me.”

Irrespective of what served as the final nail in the coffin, the end of their love story has stunned insiders. The news broke Friday courtesy of the New York Post’s Page Six, which reported that the two broke up in part because of a January scandal involving a cast member on Bravo’s ‘Southern Charm’. During the TV show’s reunion special, host Andy Cohen brought up LeCroy’s alleged affections for “a very famous, married ex-MLB player.”

Rodriguez, of course, is unmarried, but in wake of the LeCroy scandal, a source told Page Six: “There were already problems, but Jennifer was really embarrassed by.” Lopez is currently away shooting ‘Shotgun Wedding’, while Rodriguez’s most recent Instagram post shows him hanging out on a boat off Miami.

The two were last seen together on March 1 in the Dominican Republic where Lopez was filming. The breakup comes nearly one month after Lopez admitted the couple sought professional help last year amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown. “We got to work on ourselves. We did therapy. I think it was really helpful for us in our relationship,” she told Allure in February 2021.

Lopez and Rodriguez started dating in 2017. The couple made their red carpet debut at the Met Gala in May the same year and celebrated Christmas as a family later that year. Lopez raved about Rodriguez in August 2018 as she accepted the MTV Video Music Awards’ Video Vanguard Award honour.

They got engaged in the Bahamas early in 2019. Rodriguez popped the big question in March 2019 as the couple enjoyed a tropical vacation. He announced the news on Instagram, sharing a photo of Lopez wearing a massive square-cut diamond ring. “She said yes,” he captioned the picture.

Then the apparently former couple had to postpone their wedding twice due to the pandemic. “We had planned what we really, really wanted to do, [but] I don’t know if we’ll be able to re-create that,” Lopez told People in January. “We canceled it, and since then we haven’t really talked about it. There’s no rush. We want to do it right when we can do it.”

Lopez noted in that interview that even though both she and Rodriguez had been married before — this would have been her fourth trip down the aisle — it was still “a little disappointing” to put it off.

The ‘Maid in Manhattan’ actress and Super Bowl halftime show star was previously married to restaurateur Ojani Noa, dancer Cris Judd and singer Marc Anthony (pictured), with whom she shares 12-year-old twins Max and Emme. She was also engaged to Oscar winner Ben Affleck, but they never married.

Rodriguez has been married once before and has two daughters, Natasha and Ella, with ex-wife Cynthia Scurtis. - With inputs from ANI