What Really Went Wrong Between J. Lo And Casper Smart

After nearly five years together, Jennifer Lopez and Casper Smart have called it quits. There were hardly any signs of trouble recently, so what happened between these two? As it turns out, there could be quite a few reasons they didn't work out.

Lopez is a 47-year-old mom. Smart is 29 with no real responsibilities outside of being her boyfriend. Because they're at different places in their lives, they probably couldn't make it work for that reason alone. Smart previously told People, "We don't really go out very much. We both don't drink, we don't do any drugs, smoking, pills or any of the craziness."

However, Smart was snapped leaving The Nice Guy, a notoriously celeb-friendly bar last week. Maybe he got sick of the mellow lifestyle that Lopez enjoyed and wanted to relish the nightlife while he's still young enough to handle it.

Smart is a choreographer and backup dancer, but most of his work has been with Lopez, most notably in her "Dance Again" video. He told Entertainment Tonight that he's worked with other artists too, including Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj, but those gigs were both after he hooked up with J. Lo. She also got him acting work on her crime drama. "I just did a small little role in Shades of Blue," Smart told People in 2015. "I'm in the finale. My scenes are not with her, though—[they're] with Ray Liotta."

Smart realizes critics have dismissed his credentials. "It's also hard being looked at like, 'You only had that job because you were the boyfriend,'" Smart told Entertainment Tonight in 2014. "Before Jennifer, I did a lot of stuff with other big artists."

Radar Online reports that while Lopez is perfectly content with her twins, Max and Emme, from her previous marriage to Marc Anthony, Smart wants to start a family of his own. "Casper does not care about Jennifer's age," a source said. "The underlying issue here is that he is young and wants to be a father one day, and she does not want to have any more kids."

Lopez may not want to add to her brood because of her schedule. Between Shades of Blue, recording, her Las Vegas residency, and promotional duties, it's hard enough for her to prioritize time with the twins. She told People her relationships are "always in reference to the kids. What's best for them, what's good for them, let's talk this way in front of them...Once they're happy, they just add happiness and joy into the home and then everything else kind of goes from there."

Lopez has made it no secret that she has problems remaining single for long. She told InStyle in 2014, "Look, I don't love being alone. I don't. I can't beat myself up for that. What I have to do is figure out why I don't like it." She continued, "In the past, love for me has always meant forever and sure you still nurse those fantasies, but I don't try to force it anymore. I hung on to my fairy tale ideals for a long time. But where I am now, what I've been through, there are no rules."

Lopez told W magazine she sometimes stays in relationships that aren't ideal just to avoid lonely nights. She said of her marriage to Anthony, "I hung in there for seven years. I knew very quickly that it wasn't the right thing." Who's to say the same thing didn't happen with Smart, who was her rebound from Anthony?

A pal of Lopez told E! News that Smart was meant to be a rebound and nothing more. "Smart was a good distraction post-Marc [Anthony]. He was good to her. He was meant to be easy and fun, and when that was gone, she didn't want to be in the relationship anymore."

An insider told E! News that Smart's alleged sexting with a transsexual model was, understandably, a huge problem in the relationship. "Whether there is any truth to what is being reported or not, it's irrelevant. Jennifer did not trust him," the source said. "The relationship had not been right for a while. Smart was never going to be the love of her life, but he was fun and a nice guy to be around. It stopped being fun once his friendships with other people started to come to light."

People reports that the breakup was actually boring. Without marriage or kids on the table, a source claimed there just was nowhere else for the relationship to go for Smart and Lopez. An insider dished, "They have not been together for a few weeks. It wasn't anything dramatic and they were on good terms—it just came to a natural end."

Now that Ben Affleck is single, maybe Lopez wants to give the original Bennifer another go? She revealed to People in March 2016 that Affleck may well have been the love of her life. "I really felt like when I met Ben, I was like okay, this is it," she said. She wrote in her memoir (via The Daily Mail) that when Affleck called off their wedding the day before the ceremony, "I felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest."

She confessed to People that, under different circumstances, the relationship may have worked out. "I think different time different thing, who knows what could've happened, but there was a genuine love there."

Now that Affleck and Jennifer Garner are dunzo, maybe it's time for a Bennifer 1.0 redux.

Boys will be boys: TMZ reports that Lopez dumped Smart after he skipped out on a swanky charity event to watch a UFC fight. Sources told the site that Lopez made it clear that it was very important to her that he join her at a Hamptons party supporting the Apollo Theater, but he opted to head to Las Vegas with his bros to watch Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor battle it out in the octagon. At that point, Lopez supposedly told him flat out that they were done—no discussion, no fight, no drama. However, Smart seemed to be in denial that there was a problem because he reportedly told his buddies that he'd be meeting up with Lopez after the fight.

Despite the split, insiders (and Lopez herself) have pointed out that she and Smart have been very on-again off-again, so there's still a chance these two may reunite. "I still think about getting married and having that long life with someone," she told W magazine. "I love the movie The Notebook. A dream of mine is to grow old with someone."