As of yesterday, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were still in the Hamptons where they spent the Fourth of July after taking his son and her two children to Universal Studios Hollywood last Friday. We’ll get to that in a minute but let’s talk first about the new song, “Cambia el Paso”, that she released this week with Rauw Alejandro. The song is fun, a good summer jam, and a solid track for the treadmill – I had it on my playlist and the four minutes went by relatively quickly, which is what you need for a running song, or at least I do because I hate every f-cking second of exercise and if I don’t have good beats to move to it makes it that much harder. 

 

You know what I’m really waiting for with “Cambia el Paso” though? The video. Because the teases she’s given us so far … are … well… classic JLo visuals: 

 

Seriously though, look at her: 

She gets fitter and glowier and JLo-ier every f-cking week. 

But there are some “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” vibes here, a little, right? With all that beach frolicking? That mixed in with some JLo in the Selena era – it’s the tricked out bra for me – and On The Six too if you consider these shots of her yesterday with Ben, with her hair pulled back, those sunglasses, and what looks like a pink sweatshirt. The vibes are 2002 all over again. 

 

Only it’s 2021, and we are in the Summer of Bennifer, and they’re out shopping with her kids and their friends. It was JLo who stayed in the car while Ben took Emme to a bookstore (which they found out was closed) and what’s interesting about that is that, well, Ben is known to be the reader in this romance. He’s seen with books all the time, he’s adapted books to film, he is big on Harry Potter. So it makes perfect sense that Ben’s the one heading into the bookstore (or trying to) with Emme. He wouldn’t have just been going in to accompany her, he was probably heading in to browse for himself. And that may be where they bond: as book lovers. Also, possibly, writers? 

Remember, at 13 years old, Emme Muniz is already a published author. Her first book, “Lord Help Me”, about the power of prayer, was released last year. If you’re cynical, and I get why, you might say, well, her parents are JLo and Marc Anthony, how hard could it have been to get a book deal. That may be true but at the same time, as a child of celebrities, she went after a book deal – not a clothing deal, not a record deal, not an acting series, but a book. So even though we know virtually nothing about this teenage girl with the famous parents, we can reasonably assume that stories are a big part of her life. And Ben, who is now a big part of her mother’s life, is connecting with her on that level.