Jennifer Lopez dating standards are not being negotiated in the Instagram inbox, in case anyone famous, athletic, or unusually confident was preparing a message.
The singer and actor made that fairly clear during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, where Andy Cohen asked whether she checks or responds to her direct messages. Lopez’s answer was brief enough to save everyone time.
“No,” she said.
It was a small exchange, but it landed because Lopez’s private life has been a recurring public event for more than two decades. Now promoting the Netflix romantic comedy Office Romance, in which she stars opposite Brett Goldstein, where she has to answer questions again about who she might be dating, who she is standing next to, and whether proximity counts as evidence. It should not, but here we are.
Why Jennifer Lopez says DMs are not enough
Cohen pressed a little further, asking whether the no-DM rule had any exceptions. His example was specific: “What if some amazing Spanish soccer player DMs you?”
Lopez did not appear especially tempted by the hypothetical footballer.
She said that if someone “really wanted to find” her, they could make that happen, but not through Instagram.
“You’re not going to find me through Instagram or sliding into my DMs. You have to make more of an effort than that,” the 56-year-old said.
That is not exactly a detailed dating application process, but the point is clear. Lopez is not interested in a low-effort introduction dressed up as modern romance. Instagram, apparently, is not the reception desk.
Lopez has sounded the same note in recent interviews: open enough to answer, but not so open that every public conversation becomes a referendum on her personal life.
Why Brett Goldstein dating rumors came up
Lopez’s new film has also brought fresh speculation about her and Brett Goldstein, best known to many viewers for Ted Lasso. The pair appeared together on The Today Show with Savannah Guthrie, where they were asked about rumors that they were dating.
Both laughed it off rather than treating it like a scandal.
“There’s never a time when I’m seen with somebody or working with somebody where they don’t try to put me with the person,” Lopez told Guthrie, who acknowledged that the observation was “true.”
Goldstein added his own dry assessment: “If you stand near her, that’s what happens.”
It is a familiar cycle for Lopez. A co-star becomes a headline. A promotional interview becomes a relationship audit. A romantic comedy becomes, somehow, a clue board. For an actor whose career has included major love stories on screen and a heavily covered love life off it, the overlap can be exhausting to watch, let alone live through.
Still, Lopez and Goldstein treated the question as part of the job rather than a crisis. That may be the most practical response available when the internet is determined to schedule a wedding after a press tour photo.
What happened with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck
Lopez’s comments arrive after the end of her marriage to Ben Affleck, a relationship that drew public fascination across two separate eras.
Lopez and Affleck first became a couple in 2002 after meeting on the set of Gigli. They got engaged soon afterward, but the intensity of public attention around them became part of the story almost immediately. They postponed their planned 2003 wedding and split in 2004.
At the time, Lopez pointed to Affleck’s discomfort with the media scrutiny surrounding their relationship as a factor in the breakup.
Nearly 20 years later, the pair reunited. They rekindled their romance in July 2022 and married twice that year. Their first ceremony was an intimate Las Vegas wedding at A Little White Wedding Chapel in July. The second came a month later, with a larger celebration for family and friends at Affleck’s estate in Georgia.
Their second chapter ended publicly in 2024, and their divorce was finalized in January 2025, making both legally single again.
Ben Affleck says there was no scandal
Despite the long history and heavy coverage, both Lopez and Affleck have indicated there is no ongoing feud between them.
Affleck told GQ that there was “no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue” behind the split. He also said he has “nothing but respect” for Lopez.
“The truth is, when you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’ Well, there is no: ‘This is what happened,’” he said. “It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do.”
That explanation is less dramatic than the public might prefer, which is probably why it is useful. Not every breakup requires a villain, a secret plot, or a forensic timeline.
Lopez’s latest comments suggest she is not rushing to turn her romantic life into another public project. If someone wants her attention, they will need more than a blue check, a flattering message, and optimism. For Jennifer Lopez, effort still counts.
