Less than three months after the release of her album This Is Me…Now and her accompanying musical film of the same name—not to mention the accompanying documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, all three projects a multimillion-dollar, self-financed homage to her love story with Ben Affleck—rumors are persistent and constant that Jennifer Lopez and Affleck are headed for divorce.
The signs are building, unfortunately, though we hope it’s not true: Affleck was absent as Lopez co-chaired the Met Gala on May 6 (although Lopez’s fellow co-chair, Zendaya, also went solo, without boyfriend Tom Holland). On May 14, Lopez was photographed shopping for real estate in Beverly Hills sans Affleck (and with her producing partner), even though Lopez and Affleck already have a home in L.A. Add to it all that the couple haven’t been seen in public together since March 30 (when they were house hunting in New York City) and, yeah, it doesn’t look great.
“Ben already moved out, and they’ll likely have to sell the dream house they spent two years searching for,” a source speaking to In Touch said. “They’ll never stop loving each other, but she can’t control him, and he can’t change her. There’s no way it could have lasted.” Take from the anonymous source what you will, but they did add “They waited almost two decades to get back together, but in the end, they just couldn’t make it work…They both said they’d matured and learned from their mistakes, but some of the bigger issues that tore them apart the first time remained the same.”
Lest we forget the first time, when the portmanteau “Bennifer” was born back in the early aughts; the couple called off their planned 2003 wedding just days before it was supposed to happen, and ultimately split for good in 2004. Yet the two never really seemed to get over each other, despite both marrying other people and having children with other people. In 2021, they reconnected, and by 2022 were engaged and, as of that summer, married—20 years after the whole love story began.
All seemed to be going well, Lopez even throwing herself into a self-financed project worth millions on millions to ensure their love story played out through her creative vision onscreen. Doesn’t it seem impossible that, after the two decade wait, and after seeming so in love, the two would, well, give up so quickly? (All of this said, fully realizing we as the public have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.) Take it from Lopez herself from the documentary earlier this year: “All those years was really hard, because I didn’t just feel like I lost the love of my life, I felt like I lost the best friend that I’ve ever had,” she said. “And I couldn’t talk to him for so many years. And that was the hardest part.”
Lopez has spent most of the winter and early spring in New York City shooting the movie musical Kiss of the Spider Woman; she’ll head out on tour next month. Affleck, meanwhile, has been in L.A. shooting The Accountant 2, which was the reason given for why he wasn’t at the Met two weeks ago. That said, though, it’s been made pretty obvious—if by nothing else than from the look on his face—that Affleck probably doesn’t enjoy being as outfront and public as his wife does. He said so himself on The Greatest Love Story Never Told: “Getting back together, I said, ‘Listen, one of the things I don’t want is a relationship on social media,’” he said. “Then I sort of realized it’s not a fair thing to ask. It’s sort of, like, you’re going to marry a boat captain, and you go, ‘Well, I don’t want the water.’ We’re trying to learn to compromise.”
For what it's worth, as she does a press tour for her upcoming Netflix film, Atlas, Lopez’s wedding rings are firmly on display. Yet, despite having a perfectly good $60 million mansion that they bought together just last year, Affleck is staying elsewhere, Page Six reports, as the divorce rumors loom. And yet, Affleck was dangling his left hand out of the car window as he drove through town, and—yep—his wedding ring was also present, just like his wife’s.
Affleck has reportedly been staying at the new home “over the past week or so,” and Page Six reports that the couple are in therapy together: “Ben believes in therapy, to a point, and is willing to be a good sport about participating with an open mind, even though he hates the whole humiliating process,” a source said. “He’s never going to gauge the success of this marriage by what happens in the therapist’s office. He also has a higher tolerance for conflict and having to fight to get his way than the average guy.”
Speaking of conflict, the source—who claimed to have known Affleck for more than a decade—said that “everything is a fight” between the two.
The couple share five children between them—three from Affleck’s marriage to Jennifer Garner, and twins from Lopez’s marriage to Marc Anthony. For what it's worth, we're hoping these rumors are all rubbish. As Tyra Banks once said on America's Next Top Model, "We were all rooting for you..."
