AceShowbiz - Jennifer Lopez calls it a "surreal miracle" that she and Ben Affleck rekindled their love. The 54-year-old pop superstar was due to marry Hollywood star Ben, 51, in the early 2000s but they broke things off and went their separate ways only to reunite in 2021 and marry the following year.

She has now explained, ahead of the release of "This Is Me...Now", that her upcoming ninth studio album was all inspired by her getting a "second chance at real, true love."

"I wrote 'This Is Me... Then' when Ben and I fell in love 20-something years ago. As fate would have it, we came back into each other's lives. And on the 20th anniversary of 'This Is Me'... Then, I announced that I would do 'This Is Me... Now' . It was inspired by the surreal miracle that had happened," she told the Metro newspaper.

"Him coming back into my life and the two of us reuniting in a way that we never expected that was the inspiration for even going in the studio. The album just poured out of me. It was just something organic and beautiful, but it was definitely inspired by getting this incredible second chance at real, true love."

The "Jenny From the Block" hitmaker - who has 15-year-old twins Max and Emme with ex-husband Marc Anthony and is stepmother to Ben and Jennifer Garner's kids Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and 11-year-old Samuel - added that with her new project, she wants to let people know that things can be ever-lasting, even though the road to getting there might not always be straightforward.

She said, "I said if we can just... let people know because I've wondered about this - does true love really exist? Does anything last forever? We're told a lot of times that nothing does. I said I would like to share with the world that I believe things do last forever. Maybe they don't have a straight line, maybe it's not all of the ideas that you think it's going to be, but it lasts forever."

"This Is Me...Now" is due for release on February 16.