Jennifer Lopez’s birthday is tomorrow. We’ll get to that in a minute because there’s a lot of great gossip nostalgia when it comes to her birthday. First, though, we have to talk about Leah Remini’s birthday, which was back in June. And just last night she shared a compilation video from the celebration that includes several JLo appearances and one Bennifer appearance…
So Ben was at the party with JLo. And now people are saying this is Bennifer going Instagram Official… which… I’m not sure, does it qualify? I don’t think JLo is like Beyoncé in that NDAs are involved and no one is sharing anything of Beyoncé without clearing it with the Queen, in writing, but at the same time, Leah’s aware of the noise around Bennifer, the intrigue, the public fascination, and she’s not going to do this without giving her girl a head’s up – that’s just basic code.
Still, even though JLo would have signed off on the post, in my books this isn’t IG Official until Ben shows up on JLo’s feed proper. So can we go with “Instagram Official… adjacent”? F-ck it, why are we wasting time on social media terminology when we could be talking about her birthday.
Again, it’s tomorrow, she’ll be 52 years old. But remember when she was 32 years old? How the F-CK was that 20 years ago?
It was 2002. In June 2002, JLo filed for divorce from Cris Judd, just a few months after working on Gigli with Ben. By the night of her birthday, July 24, 2002, there were photos of Bennifer cuddling and kissing at her party. Up to that point, while there were rumours about the two of them, this birthday was the publicly official starting point, the gossip turning point. If you were around then, you’ll know I’m not exaggerating when I say it was a FRENZY. We all lost our f-cking minds.
That birthday marked the first ever Bennifer Summer.
And the following year? In 2003, when they were already engaged, Ben went all out for JLo’s birthday. (This was just days before the Gigli premiere, LOL.) This time he throws her an over-the-top surprise party, flying in friends and family from all over, and gifting her with a Rolls Royce Phantom, and another ring, a diamond and topaz. There was also a yo-yo, just to keep sh-t real. He later said that, "I pulled the surprise party off effectively. I also bought Jen a yo-yo. It has lights inside that go on when it goes up and down."
Should we throw it back to them at the Gigli premiere, just for kicks?
It is now 2021, and miraculously we are enjoying another Bennifer Summer, and another birthday, the first birthday since Ben and JLo got back together. Unlikely that we’ll see the kind of display we saw back then. Chances are it’ll be a little more restrained but… no less romantic?
Remember, word is their relationship was rekindled when Ben started writing love letters (via email) to JLo when she was filming in the Dominican Republic. He knows her love language! What does he have planned for tomorrow? Will we ever find out?! Will she show us on IG?!
Here’s JLo yesterday out in LA.
