"Puffy" recalls romance with "J.Lo"
( 2001-05-08 10:37 ) (7 )

Sean 'Puffy' and Jennifer Lopez are shown during Game 1 of the World Series in Yankee Stadium in this October 21, 2000 file photo. [Reuters]

Frank never got over Ava. And Joe always carried a torch for Marilyn. Now Puffy says he'd still run into a burning building to save J.Lo.

In a Vanity Fair interview that hits newsstands Wednesday, Rap impresario Sean "Puffy" Combs said he and his ex-girlfriend, singer-actress Jennifer Lopez, had a romance that ranked right up there with the storied relationships of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.

"We'd always say to each other that I was Frank and she was Ava. ... Everything always being up and down," he told the magazine in an article focusing on the life and career of Lopez. "Or Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. I can understand why there was a lot of energy in the relationship."

"For me, it was the most energy I gave to a relationship. Sometimes, when two people get together, you feel a certain type of spark that's like, 'Yo!'"

Combs, 31, told the magazine he and Lopez, 30, remain "good friends" and that he'd even risk his life to save hers.

"She'll always be someone that I love. All she's gotta do is think -- she doesn't even need to pick up the phone -- and I'll be able to feel her," he said. "Even in her darkest hour, if she's in a building and there's a fire and somebody's gotta run in and there's a 99 percent, 100 percent chance that they'll die, I'll run in there after her."

According to Vanity Fair, Combs didn't give up on their romance easily. He arranged for soul singer Luther Vandross to serenade Lopez in a recording studio and even sent her 100 white doves, but it was to no avail.

The Harlem-born hip-hop mogul and the Latina bombshell from the Bronx officially ended their highly publicized romance of more than two years on Valentine's Day. The split came as Combs was standing trial in New York on weapons and bribery charges and Lopez was basking in the success of her chart-topping album, "J.Lo," and her last movie, "The Wedding Planner," which opened at No. 1 at the US box office.

For her part, Lopez told Vanity Fair, the ordeal of the trial and the investigation leading up to it was "extremely painful and draining, but I'm sure not half as much as it was for him."

"I just tried to be there for him. I tried to stay positive, even when I didn't feel positive," she told Vanity Fair on the set of her latest film, "Enough," a follow-up to her soon-to-be-released film "Angel Eyes." "And I was always a phone call away."

Although prepped as a witness in the case, Lopez was never called to testify. She has always maintained that Combs was wrongly accused.