LOS ANGELES (REUTERS/AFP) - Singer Jennifer Lopez and former New York Yankees baseball star Alex Rodriguez said on Saturday (March 13) they are still a couple and are "working through some things" after it was reported they split up after almost four years together.
Celebrity website TMZ, the New York Post's Page Six and multiple entertainment sites on Friday cited unidentified sources close to the couple, sometimes known in the media as J-Rod, as saying the pair had called off their engagement.
"All the reports are inaccurate. We are working through some things," Lopez, 51, and Rodriguez, 45, one of the biggest celebrity couples in the United States, said in a joint statement provided to Reuters.
The Love Don't Cost A Thing singer and Rodriguez, known as A-Rod, began dating in early 2017 and announced their engagement in March 2019.
In a statement reported by People magazine on Saturday, the couple said they "are working through some things".
Just last year, the couple had bought a US$40 million (S$54 million) home in Miami.
Rodriguez posted a selfie on social media last Friday of himself aboard a boat in Miami. "Don't mind me, just taking a sail-fie," he wrote.
Lopez was in the Dominican Republic filming a movie and posted last Thursday on social media saying: "Find a good reason to laugh today."
An unnamed source told the magazine the pair never officially broke up, but had talked about it.
"They hit a rough patch," the source said, adding that rumors linking A-Rod with a TV reality show star "had no bearing on the rough patch at all".
"She's working in the Dominican Republic and he's in Miami, so it's tough seeing each other especially with quarantining and Covid," the source told People.
Lopez, who sang at US President Joe Biden's inauguration in January, said late last year the couple had postponed their wedding twice because of the pandemic.
She began her career as a dancer and a singer, and produced and starred in the 2019 movie Hustlers.
Rodriguez retired in 2016 after a 22-year career in which he hit 696 home runs, placing him fourth on Major League Baseball's all-time home run list.
