You know that feeling when you’re starting to sober up at a house party? The one where you look around at what you thought, just a few minutes ago, was a glam, fun, hangout and, suddenly, it dawns on you… You’re actually in a dingy kitchen, listening to two men discuss the best at-home coffee grinders?
Well, I think, collectively, we’re all experiencing a similar sensation right now. Except about Bennifer 2.0.
Because J.Lo and Ben Affleck are, as I’m sure you’ve heard, over, with Lopez filing for divorce on August 20. Now that the dust is settling, it all feels a bit like waking up from a weird fever dream, doesn’t it? I mean, a few years ago, I’d have bet my, I don’t know, air fryer on the fact that this pair would stay together forever. Affleck massaging Lopez’s bum on a yacht (for the second time!) was all the evidence I needed that happily-ever-afters were real. It would appear, however, that we all got a little ahead of ourselves. Maybe a glamorous multi-hyphenate, celebrated for her drive, perfume line, and painstakingly maintained bod was never going to find her perfect match in a scruffy actor, best known in some circles for looking a bit sad when he smokes. (And I don’t mean that as a diss, it’s actually my type.) Maybe the whole way their relationship played out was… A little wild?
In case you aren’t totally clear on the story, let me clue you in. The pair first met on the set of a very bad film, Gigli, in 2001. By the time the movie had come out, they’d had a whirlwind romance absolutely chock full of PDA. Lopez wrote a love song called “Dear Ben,” in which she declared: “You’re perfect / I just can’t control myself.” (I feel the same about restaurant bread baskets.) Affleck took out full-page ads in trade mags to toast Lopez when she won awards. They got engaged within a year—Affleck sealing the deal with an extremely Y2K pink diamond. Then they were hounded by the paparazzi to the point that they cancelled their wedding, broke up, and married other people (which doesn’t sound at all traumatic).
And that was that, until 2021, when—both newly single and, let’s be honest, probably bored in lockdown 3.0—sparks began to fly between our lovebirds again. Maybe some fire emojis were DMed. Perhaps a “stay safe” was commented. Could a “you up?” have been texted? (Who didn’t shoot a few bold shots in the pandemic?) Whatever the case, the pair were drawn together. They went public in July, did their first red carpet in September, and had been married twice by the end of 2022 (because having just one wedding is for bores). And, all the while, they engaged in the kind of high-level corny behavior most people are only shameless enough to partake in during the infatuation stage, those blissful weeks at the beginning of a relationship when you’re so pheromoned-up you can’t see any of your new partner’s flaws.