Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez Officially Break Off Their Engagement

At last: those change-the-dates won't be sent out for Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez's wedding. After several months of a speculative on-again, off-again engagement, the couple released a statement on Thursday, April 15, declaring their split.

"We have realized we are better as friends and look forward to remaining so," they shared in a statement to People. "We will continue to work together and support each other on our shared businesses and projects. We wish the best for each other and one another's children. Out of respect for them, the only other comment we have is to say is thank you to everyone who has sent kind words and support."

In early March, Page Six first reported the power couple was parting ways. However, the next morning after the speculative split, the couple released a joint statement that they were still together, prompting confusion. "We are working through some things," they said to the outlet. At the time, it was reported that both had hit a rough patch.

Like so many engaged couples around the world, J.Lo and A-Rod's wedding was impacted by the coronavirus in 2020. After enduring several wedding-related woes, they remained in a holding pattern upon their initial postponement. In an early 2021 interview with Andy Cohen, the singer-songwriter might have hinted at brewing issues. "We've talked about [not getting married] for sure," Lopez said, as she discussed Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell's relationship. "With like the Goldie thing and Kurt, you think, 'Do you have to? Should we?'"

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Regardless of the outcome: it won't be the first marriage for Lopez or Rodriguez, both of whom share children with their exes. Lopez is mom to 12-year-old twins Emme and Max, with her ex-husband, Marc Anthony. The former MLB player is dad to his two daughters, Natasha, 16, and Ella, 12, whom he shares with his ex-wife, Cynthia Scurtis. "I mean at our age, we've both been married before, it's like, 'Do we get married? Do we not?'" Lopez added to Cohen. "What does it mean for us? And it's just, it comes down to like personal [conversations] like, 'What do you want to do?' There's definitely no rush though."

J.Lo and A-Rod's Original Wedding Plans

At first, the couple had their sights set out for a destination wedding. "It was really sad because we were supposed to get married in June and we had planned it all," she explained in early 2021. "So in March or April, we're looking down the pipe and we're going, 'This is maybe not going to happen.' Italy's the worst place in the world. And we were going to get married in Italy. I was like, 'OK, we've got to cancel everything.'"

In May 2020, Lopez opened up to Hoda Kotb about the emotional impact of COVID disrupting life plans. "You just have to kind of wait and see how this all plays out," Lopez said on the Today show. "It's disappointing on one level. After the Super Bowl and after World of Dance, I planned to take time off, which is what we're doing right now. But, at the same time, we had a lot of plans for this summer and this year. Everything is on hold right now."

Kotb, who's also engaged to financier Joel Schiffman and had to deal with a pivot in her plans too, asked Lopez about possible updates in the same interview. "I'm a little heartbroken, because we did have some great plans," Lopez affirmed. "But I'm also like, 'You know what? God has a bigger plan, so we just have to wait and see.' Maybe it's going to be better. I have to believe that it will be."

The Zoom calls have involved, of course, many of their wedding vendors. "We had a meeting on Zoom with our core [team]," Rodriguez told Entertainment Tonight that same month. "Kind of just going over what the next 12 months look like and we have three or four different variations of how that can look." This touches everything from their exact wedding date to movie projects to Lopez possibly "going on tour next summer." The couple is proactively approaching the possibilities with multiple options.

"It's such a fluid world," the former Yankees player stated. "Usually when you underwrite a year, whether [in terms of] scheduling or financially, you never think that it's going to just stop like this. So we're having to be very fluid, think on our feet and just think very proactively… At the same time, I think the most important thing for everybody is to practice great discipline and stay at home. We have to do this together and every person counts. The way we're going to beat this thing is together."

Other celebrities who've had to postpone their weddings include Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, and Princess Beatrice and Eduardo Mozzi, who ultimately married in a minimony with only a select few in attendance.

J.Lo and A-Rod on Their Non-Traditional Family and Relationship

During their engagement, the couple blended their families together beautifully, even despite it looking nontraditional in many ways. "I'm actually thrilled to be home, because I'm never home, so I'm making the best out of it," Rodriguez said to ET in April 2020. "We're playing Wiffle ball, we're playing chess, we're playing checkers, we're playing Monopoly, and for us to have dinner with the kids every day is like a dream."

"Right now, it's kind of making lemonade out of lemons," Lopez told Ellen DeGeneres. "It's a terrible time for all of us and a weird time and a scary time, [an] anxious time. We don't know what's going to happen. But having a reconnection with the family and Alex and not having to run around so much is kind of nice, too. So, making the best of it."

Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez first started dating in 2017 and got engaged in 2019. For the multi-hyphenate, she thought it would be a forever love. "I said, 'If we're going to be together for the rest of our lives, what is the rush?'" Lopez once told Oprah Winfrey. "If that's what we're really going to do, if we're really going to be partners, if we're really going to try to build something together that we both never had or never felt like we had, which is a family with a husband and a wife, and a mother and father, and we embrace all our children. We show them it's something that we didn't have."