Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony announced their surprising decision to end their marriage Friday, but there were signs of trouble leading up to the power couple's split.
Anthony, 42, was conspicuously absent at the star-packed BAFTA Brits to Watch bash in L.A. on July 9. Lopez, 40, brought her mother Guadalupe as her date to meet Prince William and Duchess Kate.
Also noticeably absent at the event? The American Idol judge's wedding ring.
"We have come to an amicable conclusion on all matters," Lopez and Anthony said in a joint statement Friday. "It is a painful time for all involved, and we appreciate the respect of our privacy at this time."
The couple are parents to three-year-old twins Max and Emme. As recently as January, Lopez gushed on the Ellen DeGeneres Show about having kids with Anthony. "As soon as I had the babies, I thought to myself, 'I want to do this a thousand more times…' I love this. This is life."
Friends for years, Lopez and Anthony dated briefly in the 1990s. They stepped out again as a couple in early 2004, shortly after Lopez's broken engagement from Ben Affleck, and in the midst of Anthony's divorce from first wife, former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres. They wed at a quiet home wedding in June 2004.
The duo renewed their vows in 2008, then again in 2010. "We realized the bets in Vegas [on whether we'd make it] stopped at five years," Anthony joked to Us at the time.
Lopez (who famously dated Sean Combs in addition to Affleck), had been married twice before: to restauranteur Ojani Noa (they split in 1998) and former backup dancer Cris Judd, to whom she was married from 2001 to 2003.
