Both had previously been married. Affleck, 52, married Jennifer Garner, with whom he has three children, in 2005. They divorced in 2018 | Photo: Shutterstock
After a relationship that spanned two decades, two engagements, two weddings and headlines too numerous to count, Jennifer Lopez has filed for divorce from Ben Affleck.
Tuesday’s appearance in Los Angeles seemingly brought to an end a celebrity couple, or at least their second installment, that dazzled from the top of the pop culture firmament and graced countless tabloid covers. The couple became household names even before power couple names like Bennifer became common.
Court records show Lopez filed the petition on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. The news was first reported by the website TMZ. TMZ further reported that Lopez listed the date of separation as April 26, 2024. It added that she did not mention any prenuptial agreement.
After meeting, falling in love and getting engaged in the early 2000s and starring together in 2003’s infamous Gigli and 2004’s Jersey Girl, the couple split, partly blaming the pressure of the public eye.
But to the delight of many and perhaps the skepticism of others, they reunited two decades later and married twice in 2022.
Love is beautiful, it is kind and it turns out love is patient. Twenty years of patience, Lopez wrote, announcing her first quickie wedding in Las Vegas in July and signing off as Jennifer Lynn Affleck.
“Stay long enough and you might just find the time of your life at a drive-thru in Las Vegas at 12:30 a.m. in the tunnel of love with your kids and the person you’ll spend eternity with,” she wrote in her newsletter.
The couple had flown to Las Vegas, lined up with their license alongside four other couples and tied the knot shortly after midnight at A Little White Wedding Chapel, where Lopez said a Bluetooth speaker played their brief walk down the aisle. She said it was the best night of the couple’s lives.
A month later, they had a much grander wedding at Affleck’s home in Georgia, in front of friends and family.
Both had previously been married. Affleck, 52, married Jennifer Garner, with whom he has three children, in 2005. They divorced in 2018.
Lopez, 55, has been married three times before. She was briefly married to Ojani Noa from 1997 to 1998 and to Cris Judd from 2001 to 2003. She and singer Marc Anthony were married for a decade, having tied the knot in 2004, and have 14-year-old twins. She began dating former baseball player Alex Rodriguez in 2017, but the couple called off their engagement in 2021.
Throughout, Lopez has been the most outspoken in describing her and Affleck’s journeys. When asked earlier this year if she was harder on herself because her relationships had been so high-profile, Lopez agreed.
“Yes, 100 percent. It’s made me doubt myself and feel really bad about myself at times. It made me feel like I wanted to quit at times. But at the end of the day, I feel like you have to do something to learn how to deal with it,” she told The Associated Press.
“You take the things that could be constructive and you use them, and the rest you throw away as hate or whatever and you think, ‘It doesn’t matter. I know who I am, I know what I want to do.'”
Affleck himself has expressed admiration for her self-possession, telling AP last year that he agreed with the idea that Hollywood was unsure how to capitalize on her vast talents.
“I think he’s at his best,” Affleck said at the time. “He’s doing an extraordinary job largely because he’s taking the step of taking responsibility for what he’s doing rather than saying, ‘This is what I’m being offered.'”
Lopez will star in the upcoming film Unstoppable, which will be produced under Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity banner.
In May, she starred in the Netflix film Atlas.
At the end of the month, she abruptly canceled her 2024 North American tour, saying she was heartbroken and devastated to disappoint her fans but that the move was necessary.
Jennifer will take some time off to be with her children, family and close friends, organizers said in a statement.
The tour was to be her first in five years, in support of her first solo album in a decade, This Is Me…. Now and its companion film, a fictional look at her long love life and a documentary.
When I was a little girl, people asked me what I wanted to be. I grew up wanting to be a woman in love, Lopez sang in the title track.
The album, she said, was inspired by her renewed relationship with Affleck. But the film is more “about your journey as a person, about a person’s journey and what it takes to go from heartbreak to love again. Or the journey of a hopeless romantic in their search for love.”
In the film, she played a character called The Artist who, similarly, had decided as a child what she wanted to be when she grew up: in love.
But the road was tricky. In one of the first scenes, The Artist is riding on the back of a motorcycle, crossing a beach, with a muscular man wearing a protective visor. Then the motorcycle crashes.
Not all love stories have a happy ending, she says.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: August 21, 2024 | 11:21 a.m. IS
Disclaimer:
The information contained in this post is for general information purposes only. We make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the post for any purpose.
We respect the intellectual property rights of content creators. If you are the owner of any material featured on our website and have concerns about its use, please contact us. We are committed to addressing any copyright issues promptly and will remove any material within 2 days of receiving a request from the rightful owner.