Ben Affleck‘s turbulent love life has seen him become the subject of serious internet sleuthing this year. Social media has lost its mind over Affleck looking sullen in seemingly every photo taken of him in 2024.
Yet that downcast expression was nowhere to be seen this week, when Affleck was spotted with his ex-wife Jennifer Garner. The pair were volunteering at a charity’s annual Thanksgiving lunch for homeless people in Los Angeles and looked to be in good spirits, laughing together and whispering in each other's ears. Affleck and Garner were married for 13 years and share three children, but they split up in 2018.
Meanwhile, Ben Affleck’s other ex-wife called Jennifer shared her own Thanksgiving snap, posing solo with a perfectly browned turkey. “I am so incredibly grateful to all of you,” wrote JLo on Instagram.
The internet was collectively brought to its knees by the romantic reunion of Affleck and Lopez back in 2021. Bennifer was back, Noughties nostalgia reigned supreme and all felt right with the world. The pair first got together in 2001 and were set to marry, before calling off their engagement in 2004.
Two decades, three engagements, two spouses and five children later, and the pair were spotted hanging out again in April 2021. In July of that year, they went Instagram official, with J-Lo sharing a snap of them kissing on a boat in St Tropez. They made their first public outing as a couple at the Venice Film Festival in September.
By April 2022 they were engaged again, and they married in July with a full white wedding in Georgia. "It's a beautiful outcome that this has happened in this way at this time in our lives where we can really appreciate and celebrate each other and respect each other," said Lopez at the time.
Yet signs that the dream was starting to crack became apparent this year. They weren’t spotted together for weeks and in June Affleck was spotted moving his belongings out of their shared house in LA. In August, news broke of their separation and Lopez filed for divorce, citing “irreconcilable differences”.
Lopez has been candid about their separation to the press. She told Interview magazine in October that she had no regrets about the split. "Not one second," she said. "That doesn’t mean it didn’t almost take me out for good. It almost did. But now, on the other side of it, I think to myself, 'F---, that is exactly what I needed. Thank you, God. I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry that you had to do this to me so many times.”
Meanwhile, Ben Affleck became something of a meme. Whether he’s walking through the park, attending a glitzy awards ceremony or about to dig into a late night takeaway, the man cannot crack a smile. The internet proclaimed the Good Will Hunting star to have a “resting bitch face”, collating various images of his Eeyorish expressions.
Ben Affleck's principal body of work – a soul-destroying practice where he forces himself to exist in public as the manifest embodiment of absolute male misery – is one of the strongest of any living artist pic.twitter.com/ERwyh6nkMv
— ཊལབསརངཧ (@David_Rudnick) April 24, 2020
Ben Affleck is every husband dragged to a work thing by his wife #Grammys2023 pic.twitter.com/dIyoRN0AcJ
— Bianca Teixeira (@TheBiancaT) February 6, 2023
just when I needed him the most... new pics of Ben Affleck struggling with the unbearable weight of being alive while on a Dunkin run just dropped pic.twitter.com/x7vdzsyb8v
— jolene of arc (@okaypompeii) October 13, 2023
In June, Affleck told comedian Kevin Hart that he is “a little bit shy” and doesn’t like it when “somebody has their camera and sticks it in my face”. Fair enough. Affleck prefers to call it his “resting hard face”, but insists “that’s how God made me”.
In the midst of their divorce, Lopez and Affleck have been promoting their film Unstoppable, which Lopez stars in and Affleck produced. They are keeping things professional and Affleck described Lopez’s performance as “spectacular”. Who knows what could happen in 20 years’ time.
