Identical to the opening of Jennifer Lopez’s film musical This Is Me… Now — the place the multihyphenate’s unnamed character and the mysterious love of her life (performed by and representing Ben Affleck) are thrown from a motorbike in a crash that symbolically breaks her coronary heart — the actual Jennifer Lopez is perhaps on the verge of a break up with the actual Ben Affleck.
In accordance to tabloids, Lopez and Affleck are on the sting of divorce, residing individually, and intensely sad with being married to one another. He allegedly needs to have a life away from the highlight, and she will’t cease residing in it.
If this all sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of it’s all eerily just like what occurred 20 years in the past when the couple, generally known as Bennifer, first broke up. After a magnetic first assembly on a film set, the 2 started courting and shortly grew to become one of the vital sought-after superstar {couples}. Gossip rags and paparazzi have been there to seize their each breath. The couple finally referred to as it quits, blaming the outsize media consideration for his or her demise. Based mostly on what nameless sources presupposed to be near the couple need to say in the present day, it seems like we’re as soon as once more again on the Bennifer precipice of 2004.
Bennifer isn’t the primary superstar couple nor will they be the final, however they signify one thing uncommon in Hollywood: an actual — and actually dramatic — relationship. One thing that wasn’t made for PR, however captures so, a lot of it. They’re two very well-known individuals in love who’ve tried to stay and love authentically in an business the place that’s extraordinarily dangerous. Their relationship additionally displays our fixation with realness and relatability: In the event that they didn’t have both, we wouldn’t be so engrossed by them.
Given the present media fervor, right here’s a take a look at what the 2 signify — solo, collectively, break up — that makes us so obsessive about them some 20 years later.
The whole relationship timeline of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, a.ok.a. Bennifer
December 2001–November 2002: The start of Bennifer
Affleck and Lopez meet on the set of Gigli, which begins capturing in December 2001. Initially, Halle Berry had been provided Lopez’s function, however needed to drop out attributable to scheduling battle with 2003’s X-Males sequel X2. Lopez is married to backup dancer Chris Judd on the time, however information for divorce in summer season 2002, ending their 10-month marriage. Lopez and Affleck formally start courting shortly after.
The media refers back to the couple as “Bennifer,” a mix of their first names. Allegedly, director Kevin Smith coined the portmanteau whereas directing the 2 on the set of his film Jersey Lady. Bennifer begins a pattern of the media bestowing superstar {couples} with mashed-up nicknames like Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) and TomKat (Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes).
On November 5, 2002, Lopez premieres her music video for “Jenny From the Block” on TRL. The video stars Affleck, and is about how Lopez and Affleck can’t discover any privateness. They’re hounded by paparazzi at each flip. The video can also be a flex as a result of they’re styled elegantly and doing glamorous issues like hanging out on a yacht and lounging by the pool with a bottle of champagne. The gist: Everybody needs a chunk of them as a result of they’re the It couple.
November 10, 2002: Bennifer’s engaged
In an unique interview with ABC Information’s Diane Sawyer, Lopez confirms that she and Affleck are engaged. At first, Lopez performs coy, telling Sawyer that the 2 have been very “safe” of their relationship. In accordance with ABC Information, Lopez calls Affleck throughout a break within the interview, and so they resolve to go on the document about their engagement. Lopez tells Sawyer that Affleck’s proposal “was conventional, but additionally in a really spectacular approach, as in fact Ben would do it.”
August 2003–January 2004: Bennifer bombs out
Bennifer is now essentially the most well-known couple in Hollywood that isn’t married. Tabloids love them. Their wedding ceremony plans are in each journal. Her engagement ring, a Harry Winston pink diamond the dimensions of a meteorite, appears to have its personal gravitational pull. The marriage is reportedly going to be a gigantic, multimillion-dollar Hollywood affair.
The plan is to tie the knot in September, proper after the August launch of Gigli, the film the 2 labored on collectively. Folks ostensibly need to see Gigli to witness the spark that created Bennifer, captured onscreen. Gigli, sadly, seems to be an terrible movie, one of many worst motion pictures {that a} group of people has ever created. Critics ravage the customarily offensive idiocy of the script, its flat digicam work, and its supernatural capacity to bore. It flops on the field workplace, bringing in solely $7 million worldwide.
Each tabloid focuses on how Bennifer was dealing with Gigli’s absolute failure. Then in early August, Affleck visits Brandi’s Unique Nightclub in Vancouver, Canada. Reportedly Lopez is upset, however via their spokespeople, the couple says all the things is ok and that he had at all times deliberate to go to the strip membership. Whispers of Lopez’s uneasiness sharpen into tabloids declaring that there’s bother in paradise, and Bennifer is quickly deteriorating forward of their storybook wedding ceremony.
Days earlier than the ceremony, post-Gigli and post-Brandi’s, the couple sends an announcement formally suspending their nuptials. “Because of the extreme media consideration surrounding our wedding ceremony, we now have determined to postpone the date,” Lopez and Affleck say in a joint assertion. “We felt what ought to have been a joyful and sacred day might be spoiled for us, our households and our pals.”
The couple formally calls it quits in January 2004.
January 2004–April 2021: The solo days (type of)
Aside, the couple strikes on. Lopez marries singer Marc Anthony in June 2004; the 2 have twins in 2008, however divorce in 2014. In 2019, she will get engaged to former Yankee Alex Rodriguez, breaking apart in early 2021. As of early 2021, her profession is on the up, as she stars in Hustlers and performs on the Tremendous Bowl.
Affleck marries actor Jennifer Garner (a Bennifer reboot, of kinds, with new casting) in June 2005, and so they have three kids. After his public struggles with alcoholism, their divorce is finalized in 2018. Affleck’s profession over this era is a bit more uneven, with excessive highs and low lows — Argo, which he directed, wins the Greatest Image Oscar in 2012, however he additionally turns into the reluctant hero of inescapable, existential unhappiness.
April 2021: Bennifer reunites
In April 2021 — the identical month that Lopez and Alex Rodriguez announce they’ve damaged up — the pair reunite, reportedly after Affleck offers a glowing quote for an InStyle profile about Lopez. Lopez visits Affleck in Montana in early Might, which is an enormous deal as a result of that’s allegedly considered one of Affleck’s most favourite locations on Earth. In accordance with unnamed sources, the reunion between the 2 is intense and the chemistry between Lopez and Affleck is, like the primary time, indescribably robust.
The general public is rooting for the Bennifer reunion. Maybe it’s the post-pandemic-lockdown earnestness or regret over the overall schadenfreude we appeared to really feel on the finish of Bennifer 1.0, however there’s a sense that these two are good for one another. Her resurgent success is simply what Unhappy Affleck wants. Put up-A-Rod, Unhappy Affleck’s secluded life is simply what Lopez wants. In a world that doesn’t make a lot sense, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez being collectively does.
April 2022–February 2023: Bennifer engaged (once more) and eventually married
Round a yr after Bennifer reunite, the pair informs the general public — by way of Folks — that they’re engaged in April 2022. Lopez additionally teases the information in her private e-newsletter OnTheJLo. A number of months later, in July, the 2 marry in Las Vegas.
The marriage is the exact opposite of the one the couple postponed and by no means had 18 years earlier. As an alternative of a full-blown, glitzy affair, the ceremony occurred on a seemingly random Saturday in Sin Metropolis, taking the general public abruptly. The small, unannounced, non-public nuptials appear to symbolically recommend that Affleck and Lopez realized the deleterious results of media hoopla from 2004 — that they’ve grown up and are doing issues on their very own phrases. The marriage provides to the concept, this time, Bennifer are two individuals who have discovered classes about love and life and are decided to make it work. They appear extra destined than ever.
In August, the 2 have a second wedding ceremony ceremony in Georgia.
“We moved in collectively, the children moved in collectively, so it’s been like a very type of emotional transition,” Lopez tells Folks about her 2022. “However on the similar time … all of your desires coming true, it’s simply been an outstanding yr.”
February 2023–February 2024: The honeymoon section
The best way Affleck makes Lopez joyful and Lopez makes Affleck joyful appears to be mirrored of their public-facing personas. Affleck lands a Dunkin’ gig consisting of commercials that poke enjoyable at his New England grump picture (one contains Lopez). Unhappy Affleck would by no means make enjoyable of himself like this. Solely joyful males have enjoyable at their very own expense. In the meantime, Lopez not solely launches and maintains a magnificence line, but additionally begins work on an opus, seemingly able to construct upon the momentum from Hustlers and the Tremendous Bowl.
February 2024: This Is Them… Now
The best way Ben Affleck’s breath smells after consuming Dunkin’ espresso, the precise shade of his phoenix tattoo when it’s hit by the Los Angeles afternoon solar, the best way his voice shifts up an octave when he talks concerning the humorous factor Matt Damon simply did — these are a number of the intimate secrets and techniques that possibly solely Jennifer Lopez will ever know. However when you ever wished to understand how loving Ben Affleck makes Jennifer Lopez really feel, Lopez’s three-part This Is Me… Now multimedia expertise exists to be consumed.
In an album and a film musical adaptation of the album (titled This Is Me… Now: A Love Story), Lopez figures her love affair with Affleck like a fable from the traditional world: She compares them to Alida and Taroo, lovers from a Puerto Rican legend separated by destiny and feuding households.
Her first breakup with Affleck is mirrored in a bodily catastrophic bike crash that breaks Lopez’s “coronary heart manufacturing unit,” a steampunk-styled industrial foundry stuffed with staff whose job it’s to feed Lopez’s mechanical organ rose petals in order that she will proceed to like. With the assistance of a zodiac council (that includes Jane Fonda as Sagittarius), archetypal pals, a therapist performed by Fats Joe, and a go to to the Bronx the place Lopez meets her youthful self and a hummingbird, her romantic cardiac advanced is restored.
Together with her coronary heart machine stuffed with rose petals, Lopez is able to love Affleck when he enters her life once more. As a result of she loves him now with a full understanding of herself, the bike — the avatar of their love — doesn’t crash.
On the similar time, Lopez releases the film’s documentary accompaniment, The Best Love Story By no means Informed — all concerning the cash she spent to inform us how in love she is with Ben Affleck.
As Lopez explains, she needed to spend roughly $20 million of her personal cash to make the movie as a result of studios and streamers weren’t within the allegorical retelling of her marriage. The doc, which some critics say is an instance of Lopez’s blazing narcissism, makes a case that the one factor that Lopez loves greater than Affleck is with the ability to inform the world about Affleck.
Lopez doesn’t appear to care whether or not that’s what the world needs from her.
“It’s not like anybody is clamoring for the subsequent J.Lo document,” Lopez tells the digicam individual in a second of blistering self-awareness, earlier than utilizing the movie’s different 85 minutes to spend a small fortune to not solely give folks that document, however an album and two movies that nobody is “clamoring” for.
Probably the most prescient and icy remark within the movie, although, belongs to Affleck. It’s about his spouse’s want for fame. He likens her fixed efficiency — whether or not it’s appearing, singing, dancing, enjoying the Tremendous Bowl halftime present, and even making this documentary — to an dependancy.
“The factor you uncover, such as you do … with alcohol, is that there isn’t sufficient alcohol in all of the liquor shops on this planet to replenish that factor,” he says, astutely connecting Lopez’s want for superstar to his personal battle with consuming.
“And I believe in Jennifer’s case, I don’t suppose there’s sufficient followers or — or motion pictures or data or any of that stuff — to nonetheless that a part of you,” he provides.
Whereas selling her movies, Lopez talks about her reservations about having Affleck take part within the doc. He had advised her that revealing a lot of her private life was not a selection he would make. She says that together with him within the doc and exhibiting his private emotions — like that dependancy comparability — was scary however needed.
“I advised him he was loopy, not me. However I do know that I’m a loopy one. I get that half,” she tells a Los Angeles viewers in February. “However I actually really feel like as an artist, you need to be weak. You need to, even whenever you’re enjoying a job, need to get right down to the actual elements of your self to share what it’s wish to be human. And that could be a scary factor to do.”
Lopez’s multimedia artwork undertaking seems to be a bust. Despite the fact that the film musical obtained surprisingly good opinions, it did not have an enduring influence. The album is the lowest charting considered one of her profession, and her accompanying enviornment tour suffered dismal ticket gross sales. As Selection studies, Lopez rebranded the live performance as a biggest hits present in an effort to promote extra seats. The timing of Lopez’s magnum opus flopping is unusually akin to the best way Gigli took a nosedive when Affleck and Lopez have been collectively in 2004.
Might 2024: Bennifer separation rumors start (once more)
Within the superstar tabloid world, persons are paid to observe sure well-known individuals’s each transfer. In accordance with a Folks journal report this month, Bennifer has not been photographed collectively for 47 days. There are additionally studies that the 2 are at the moment residing aside, and regardless that Lopez was just lately photographed with a marriage ring on, the undertone was that she was doing it to hopefully quash the insistent rumors that they’re going via a tough patch.
Via quite a lot of unnamed sources, the issue between the 2 is, as soon as once more, the continuing consideration from the media. A supply advised Leisure Tonight that Affleck feels as if his spouse is just too engaged with being a celeb.
“Ben seems like Jen has a tough time feeling glad and that’s one of many points they’re going through,” the nameless supply advised ET. “Ben is without doubt one of the solely individuals who feels comfy sufficient to be sincere and actual with Jen. It’s a part of why Jen loves him, but additionally why she’s upset with him.”
That quote is extraordinarily just like what Affleck mentioned within the documentary: that no quantity of consideration or reward is ever going to be sufficient for his spouse. It’s additionally aligned with the continuing narrative about Affleck and Lopez. He needs a quiet life away from the highlight. She needs to be a star.
One other nameless supply echoed that assertion with Folks, telling the magazine: “She likes to open her coronary heart to her followers and to the world. He’s extra introspective and personal. This has been tough day-to-day.”
The outlook for the 2 doesn’t look good. Web page Six had a scathing quote from an insider, asserting that Affleck is nearly executed: “If there was a method to divorce on grounds of non permanent madness, he would. … He feels just like the final two years have been only a fever dream, and he’s come to his senses now and understands there’s simply no approach that is going to work.”
Neither Affleck nor Lopez have formally commented on the state of their relationship. Lopez was requested about divorce rumors although as she’s on a promotional tour for her sci-fi film Atlas. She dismissed the query, saying it was inappropriate.
On Might 31, a “heartsick” Lopez introduced in her e-newsletter that she was canceling her tour to spend extra time together with her children. Web page Six reported that sources near the singer denied that poor ticket gross sales have been accountable for the thwarted tour, pointing as a substitute towards the upcoming break up from Affleck.
Why we care a lot about Bennifer
Hollywood is an business the place we don’t see many individuals genuinely be themselves. Actors make a residing and win awards on how convincing they’re enjoying another person. From auditions to promotional excursions, they’re continuously promoting themselves, luring individuals to purchase into their public personas. And whereas it looks as if we now have extra entry to celebrities’ private lives than ever — everyone seems to be on Instagram at this level — it’s an phantasm that masks how curated these individuals’s lives are and the way fastidiously they’re presenting themselves to the general public.
The factor about Bennifer is that it genuinely seems like Affleck and Lopez do love one another in a really genuine approach. After the primary go-around, their brokers, managers, and inside circles would have suggested them in opposition to getting right into a relationship as a result of that’s not good enterprise.
Why would somebody with a logical thoughts threat going via one other spherical of dangerous press and harsh scrutiny? Why would somebody spend $20 million of their very own cash making a film about getting again collectively? Why would somebody who hates the highlight publicly get married to one of the vital well-known girls on this planet and star in her documentary about them?
And to threat this all for it to probably blow up in your face? Once more?
That needs to be love, proper?
Regardless of the thousands and thousands of {dollars} and awards and houses in Montana, this makes Bennifer unusually relatable. So many individuals have been so invested in them getting again collectively as a result of, regardless of the trimmings, it seems like a love story that might occur to anybody: getting a second likelihood together with your soulmate since you’ve each discovered out of your previous errors. Their story is sufficient to make us wistful for a romance we’ve had or possibly even ones that we haven’t had but.
Robust occasions are relatable, too. Whereas a fairytale reunion with the one which bought away generally is a story that resonates, so can the expertise of getting again with an ex solely to have it implode. Loving somebody immensely is totally different from having a loving relationship with them. Maybe we don’t at all times change and study from our errors. Watching it play out with Affleck and Lopez simply makes all of it that a lot clearer. And we will’t cease watching as a result of we have to see how — and if — all of it ends.
Replace, Might 31, 2024, 4:10 pm: This piece, initially printed on Might 26, 2024, has been up to date with the information that Lopez canceled her 2024 summer season tour.
