Los Angeles — After a two-decade relationship, two engagements, two weddings, and too many headlines to list, Jennifer Lopez has filed for divorce from Ben Affleck.
The filing in Los Angeles on Tuesday appears to have put a stop to a celebrity coupling — or at least the second part of it — that shone from the pinnacle of pop culture and graced numerous tabloid cover photos. Even before such power-couple portmanteaus became popular, the couple was called “Bennifer.”
According to court records, Lopez filed the petition on Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. The revelation was initially revealed on the TMZ website. According to TMZ, Lopez set the date of separation as April 26, 2024. It further stated that she made no mention of any prenuptial arrangement.
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s Marriage
After meeting, falling in love, and being engaged in the early 2000s — and starring together in 2003’s controversial “Gigli” and 2004’s “Jersey Girl” — the couple split up, citing the pressures of the public glare.
Jennifer Lopez Files For Divorce From Ben Affleck After 2 Years Of Marriage
However, to the surprise of many and possibly the skepticism of others, they reconciled two decades later and married — twice — in 2022.
“Love is beautiful.” Love is nice. As it turns out, love is patient. “Twenty years patient,” Lopez said, revealing their first, short Las Vegas wedding in July and signed off as Jennifer Lynn Affleck.
“Stick around long enough and maybe you’ll find the best moment of your life in a drive through in Las Vegas at 12:30 in the morning in the tunnel of love drive through with your kids and the one you’ll spend forever with,” according to her newsletter.
The couple had flown to Las Vegas, lined up with four other couples with their licenses, and married shortly after midnight at A Little White Wedding Chapel, where Lopez said a Bluetooth speaker played their brief walk down the aisle. She described it as the best night of the couple’s lives.
A month later, they married in a much bigger ceremony at Affleck’s Georgia home in front of friends and family.
A timeline for ‘Bennifer’ 2.0
Both had previously been married. Affleck, 52, married Jennifer Garner, with whom he had three children, in 2005. They got divorced in 2018.
Lopez, 55, has been married three times. She briefly married Ojani Noa from 1997 to 1998 and then to Cris Judd from 2001 to 2003. She and musician Marc Anthony were married for a decade, having married in 2004. They had 14-year-old twins. She began dating retired baseball player Alex Rodriguez in 2017, but they ended their engagement in 2021.
Lopez had always been more vocal about her and Affleck’s struggle. Lopez agreed when asked earlier this year if she was harsher on herself because her relationships had been so public.
“Oh yes. 100%. It has caused me to doubt myself and feel extremely horrible about myself at times. Made me want to quit at times. But I feel like you have to go through this process of learning how to navigate it,” she told The Associated Press. “You choose the things that could be useful and use them, and the rest you chuck away as hateful comments or other things like that and say, ‘Whatever. “I know who I am and what I want to do.”
Affleck himself praised her self-assurance, telling the Associated Press last year that he agreed with the notion that Hollywood was unclear about capitalising on her diverse talent.
“I think she’s in her prime,” Affleck stated then. “She’s doing extraordinary work in large measure because she’s taking that step to take responsibility for what she’s doing rather than say, ‘This is what I’m being offered.'”
Lopez is set to star in the next film, “Unstoppable,” which will be produced by Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity.
In May, she appeared in the Netflix film Atlas. At the end of the month, she abruptly canceled her 2024 North American tour, stating that she was “heartsick and devastated” to disappoint fans but that the decision was unavoidable. “Jennifer is taking time off to be with her children, family, and close friends,” organizers said in a statement.
Lopez defined love in her current album, ‘This is Me… Now’.
The tour would be her first in five years, supporting her first solo album in a decade, “This Is Me… Now” and its companion film. A fictionalized account of her long love life and a documentary.
“When I was a girl, they’d ask me what I wanted to be. “A woman in love is what I grew up wanting to be,” Lopez sings on the title track.
She explained that her restored connection inspired the record with Affleck. However, the film was more “about your journey as a person; it’s about one person’s journey and what it takes to get from heartbreak to love.” Or a hopeless romantic’s quest for love.” In the film, she played The Artist, a figure who, like her, had chosen as a child that she wanted to be “in love.”
Jennifer Lopez Files For Divorce From Ben Affleck After 2 Years Of Marriage
But the road was rocky. In an early scene, The Artist is traveling on the back of a motorbike across a beach with a hunky man who has his face shielded. Then the motorbike crashes.
“Not all love stories have a happy ending,” she notes.
SOURCE | AP
