Jennifer Lopez's Pink Diamond Made Her an Engagement Ring Influencer
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Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have reportedly rekindled their romance following Lopez’s recent breakup with Alex Rodriguez. In light of the news, we’re republishing this story from 2019 on the pink diamond engagement ring that Affleck proposed to Lopez with in 2002. The ring remains an iconic piece of jewelry today.
In 2002, Ben Affleck went into Harry Winston to see about a pink diamond. Legend has it that it was just because Jennifer Lopez liked the color pink. But he also might be a jewelry psychic with an eye for the future of stones and great investments. Affleck eventually decided on a 6.10 carat fancy intense pink diamond (radiant cut) with white diamond side accents.
This, of course, was several engagements ago for Lopez. She and Affleck broke up and she went on to marry singer Marc Anthony. Most recently, Lopez was engaged to Alex Rodriguez, though the couple called it quits in April 2021. But her pink ring from Affleck—who she is reportedly rekindling a romance with—remains iconic.
“It was a very rare and very precious colored diamond that most people were unaware of at the time,” says a jewelry insider familiar with the sale. This lack of awareness was not born of complete ignorance—after all, the Hope, probably the most famous diamond in the world, is a 45-carat blue.
It was discovered in the early 17th century and bought by Harry Winston in the 1940s, and is now on display at the Smithsonian, where it is visited by millions. The Princie pink diamond, which sold at Christie’s in 2016 for over $30 million, was first spotted over 300 years ago.
There's a simple reason white diamonds had long dominated the market and the public’s imagination and desires—they're more plentiful. “The vast majority of the diamonds in the world are ‘white’ in color, meaning they are colorless," says Greg Kwiat, CEO of Kwiat Diamonds and Fred Leighton. Some colors, such as pink, blue, red, orange, and green are exceedingly rare; others, like yellow, brown, and black, are more widely available.
J. Lo's pink diamond? It fell into a particularly rarified category. "It is hard to overstate just how special a fine quality, natural fancy color diamond really is," says Kwiat. "For some context, there are more Picasso paintings in the world than there are truly exceptional natural pink and blue diamonds over one carat in size.”
Affleck may have brought a lot of attention to colored diamonds by putting a (pink) ring on it, but collectors had long known about these special rocks. “Certainly Jennifer Lopez’s pink diamond engagement ring from Ben Affleck tends to get credit, deservedly, for sparking interest in colored diamonds,” says Kwiat. “But at the high-end of the market, these rare and unique colored diamonds have been recognized as a truly collectible item, and buyers from all over the world have been buying them as they come to market."
A look at colored diamonds’ meteoric rise should actually begin a bit further back than Bennifer, to 1995. Before that date, the Gemological Institute of America didn’t really have a way to classify colored diamonds. The famous 4C’s (carat, color, cut, clarity) were a great system to label white diamonds, but the colored stones entering the marketplace needed to be measured differently, allowing for variations in shade and hue and intensity. Soon, the words “fancy” and “vivid” became bragging rights for collectors. And prices began to climb.
“The value of pink diamonds went into the stratosphere. Almost two decades later, they still continue to escalate in value,” says one source. Jennifer Lopez’s six carat Harry Winston pink was “more valuable than a flawless perfect color 20 carat diamond at the time—and still would be.”
The Bennifer engagement ring was certainly one of the first times a pink diamond made international news. Now it seems, there is a record-breaking colored diamond every year. They have become the most coveted stones in the world, highly sought-after trophy properties inciting bidding wars at auction. In 2009, the Vivid Pink, five carats of cushion cut fancy pink, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong for $11 million. By 2016, a pear shaped fancy vivid that clocked in at nine carats was up to $18 million. In 2017 a 15-carat fancy vivid pink sold for $32 million.
And then the Pink Legacy, which set a world auction record price per carat for a pink diamond at Christie's Geneva in 2018. That diamond has since been renamed for its new owner: Harry Winston. It is now called the Winston Pink Legacy (in case you are in the market).
“As good as it gets,” is how Christie’s Rahul Kadakia described the Pink Legacy when I went to visit it in his office before the auction. There in my hand was 19 carats of uber-rare Fancy Vivid Pink, the top of the colored diamond pyramid. One in a million stones gets this classification. Kadakia predicted it would set a record, and about a month later his prediction came true: $50 million.
Pinks in particular have made headlines, but ask a jeweler and they will tell you red is probably the rarest of all. “But for a red diamond you need a true connoisseur,” says one dealer. “They are beyond rare, and rarely found above one carat. But that one carat is likely the most expensive diamond on the market. You need a true collector to appreciate that.” (This jeweler is currently creating a pair of red diamond stud earrings for a client.)
And if you are interested in following in Ben Affleck’s footsteps and investing in a pink diamond, Kwiat cautions to keep a few things in mind. “The most important element in buying a colored diamond is ensuring that the color is strong and appealing. In whatever color you select, you want to make sure that the diamond ring shows that color when worn. The other traditional diamond metrics also apply, including cut quality and clarity. It is important to make sure that the diamond you purchase meets your criteria for these parameters as well. But remember, natural fancy color diamonds are rare and as a buyer of one, the most important thing is that you fall in love with it. When you buy with passion, you rarely go wrong.”
On that certainly Jennifer Lopez would agree.
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