Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez officially called off their two-year engagement, saying in a statement Thursday that they “realized we are better as friends.”

“We will continue to work together and support each other on our shared businesses and projects,” Lopez and Rodriguez said in a joint statement to NBC’s “TODAY” show.

“We wish the best for each other and one another’s children. Out of respect for them, the only other comment we have to say is thank you to everyone who has sent kind words and support.”

Lopez is the mom of twins Max and Emme, 13, whom she shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony. Rodriguez is the dad to two daughters, Ella, 12, and Natasha, 16.

Rumors swirled last month that the singer, 51, and former Yankees baseball player, 45, had called it quits, but they released a statement at the time saying that they were “working through some things.”

“They never officially broke up and had talked about it but are still together. They hit a rough patch that made them think about what they should do,” multiple sources close to the couple had said. “They are sticking together. They are working through things.”

Lopez and Rodriguez started dating in 2017 and announced their engagement in March 2019 while vacationing in the Bahamas. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, they had to postpone their wedding twice.

“We’ve talked about that for sure. I mean, at our age, we’ve both been married before, it’s like, do we get married? Do we not? What does it mean for us?” Lopez told Andy Cohen on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy in December.

“It was really sad because we were supposed to get married in June and we had planned it all,” she added. “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. It was, yeah, it was like, I was like, ‘OK, we got to cancel everything.'”

Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez‘s love story won’t get a happy ending after all.

Multiple sources confirm to E! News that the Hollywood couple has called off their engagement nearly two years after a romantic proposal.

The news comes as a surprise to fans after the pair shared heartfelt Valentine’s Day posts online and also attended the Super Bowl together in Miami this past February.

In fact, Alex expressed hopes that the pair would be getting married in 2021 after postponing their wedding because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“You know we tried twice in 2020. We got bit twice by COVID-19,” the former MLB player shared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “You know, they say third time’s a charm, so let’s hope it’s what we want to hear.”

As for Jennifer, she previously told Elle that they weren’t in a rush to say “I do.” As she told the publication, “We postponed the wedding twice. We had planned what we really, really wanted to do, [but] I don’t know if we’ll be able to re-create that. We canceled it, and since then, we haven’t really talked about it.”

Jennifer Lopez got engaged to former MLB player Alex Rodriguez in March 2019 and has confirmed that their wedding plans have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. 

During an interview as part of Ellen DeGeneres‘ at-home show, J Lo said their big day would probably have happened “any day now” and, when asked if coronavirus had had an impact, she added, “Actually, it did affect it a little bit, so we will see what happens now. Honestly, I really don’t know what’s going to happen now, as far as dates or anything like that. We’re just kind of in a holding pattern like the rest of the world. It’s something that we’ll have to wait and see in a few months, how this all pans out.”

The interview also discussed homeschooling

Previously, the couple have revealed little detail on their nuptials but, between Alex hinting that it would be a “long flight” away, and Jennifer sharing posts of what looked like a wedding spot on a white beach and tagging Alex, fans believed that the pair were planning a destination wedding. It is also likely that 2020 was set to be their year since J Lo was busy filming Hustlers and preparing her Super Bowl performance alongside Shakira in 2019.

Alex proposed to Jennifer in the Caribbean

However long they have to hold off for, it sounds like Jennifer and Alex are happy as long as they are together. At Oprah Winfrey’s 2020 Vision Tour in February, Jennifer said, “Alex is like, ‘Whatever you want to do, we can talk about it.’ I said, ‘But if we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives, what is the rush?’ That’s what we’re really going to do, if we’re really going to be partners.” 

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