Ben Affleck has broken his silence on his divorce from Jennifer Lopez, which came just two years after the couple had tied the knot.
Dubbed ‘Bennifer’ by the media in the early 2000s, the A-listers enjoying a fleeting romance that culminated in an engagement before breaking up and going their separate ways.
They rekindled their passion for one another almost two decades later, going on to wed in a surprise Las Vegas wedding in 2022. Fans of the pair rejoiced, imagining a fairytale ending to a love story that had experienced its fair share of ups and downs.
Sadly, however, it was not to be. In early 2024, rumors began to spread that Affleck and J-Lo’s marriage was on the rocks, with speculation abound that it was only a matter of time before one or the other pulled the plug.
Fast forward to August and Lopez filed for divorce with the Los Angeles County Superior Court, citing “irreconcilable differences”. By that point the couple had been living apart for some time, and while their busy schedules could be partially blamed for their lack of public appearances together, the writing had been scrawled plainly on the wall for any and all who cared to see it.
Neither party has said much regarding the ins-and-outs of their marital breakdown, but Affleck recently sat down with GQ to finally offer some insight.
Asked about the last conversation he and Lopez had shared, the 52-year-old actor replied: “Well, on the one hand there’s the first feeling, which is like, well, I hope I was clear about, when you asked me about Jen and the documentary and I talked about that and my sort of personal life a little bit, which I don’t mind doing as long as my actual feelings and intentions and beliefs are communicated, which I hope I was clear that really this is somebody I have a lot of respect for.
“And I get wanting to divine or explore the kind of differences in perspective that we have in terms of how a person feels comfortable approaching the line between public and private life.
“But I really hope that whatever you use doesn’t suggest that I have any negativity or judgment or anything regarding that. I have nothing but respect.”
Affleck added: “I guess there’s a tendency to look at break-ups and want to identify root causes or something. But honestly, like I said, the truth is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting.”
Later on the interview, Affleck admitted that the whole ordeal had been “embarrassing”.
“Yeah, there’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue. The truth is, when you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’, well, there is no: ‘This is what happened’,” he said.
“It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do. And as you get older, this is true for me, I assume it’s true for most people, there is no ‘So-and-so did this’ or ‘This was the big event’.
“It’s really, it sounds more like a couple’s therapy session, which—you would tune out of someone else’s couple’s therapy after a while.”
Before adding: “For one thing, you start going, ‘Okay, clearly this person has got these issues. Clearly they have these issues’, and the reason I don’t want to share that, is just sort of embarrassing. It feels vulnerable.”
In an October 2024 interview, Lopez meanwhile likened the breakdown of her marriage as an exploding and burning house.
“When your whole house blows up, you’re standing there in the rubble going, ‘How do I not ever let that happen again?’” the singer said,
“And then you start examining it little by little saying, ‘OK, I did this, this was my part in it, this was what I should have seen early on, this is what I didn’t look at.’ Those things are what really are the lessons.”
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