Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, affectionately known as Bennifer, are officially getting a divorce two years after their wedding.
Photo: Instagram.com
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are going their separate ways, after the singer filed for divorce on Tuesday, August 20, in the Los Angeles Superior Court. Per TMZ, and People, the date of separation was stated as April 26, the same month in which the couple marked two years since their engagement.
The news of Lopez and Affleck’s divorce comes after growing speculation over their relationship status, and reports of instability in their marriage. While some sources cited differences in lifestyle and time in the spotlight, others stated that the couple was no longer living together. “They just have very different approaches when it comes to media attention,” an anonymous source told People in May. “Ben hates all attention and it makes him very uncomfortable. Jennifer has always had a different approach.” Rumors went rife when Lopez unexpectedly canceled her long-awaited This Is Me Tour, with the announcement in her newsletter OnTheJLo saying that she is “taking time off to be with her children, family, and close friends.” In her own statement to fans, Lopez said, “I am completely heartsick and devastated about letting you down. Please know that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary. I promise I will make it up to you and we will all be together again. I love you all so much.”
In June, there were reports of Lopez and Affleck “quietly” selling their US $60 million Beverly Hills home. “Ben already moved out and they’ll likely have to sell the dream house they spent two years searching for,” a source told In Touch at the time. “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. 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.” The couple themselves were not seen together in public for a while until they stepped out for Affleck’s 12-year-old son Samuel’s basketball game on June 2, months after they had already separated.
Lopez and Affleck particularly garnered public attention when they rekindled their relationship 20 years after they had first split. They went on to tie the knot in a surprise wedding in Las Vegas on July 16, and later held a larger ceremony in Georgia on August 20, 2022. The singer often dubbed their relationship “the greatest love story never told”, which was also the title and the plot of her film’s (This is Me… Now) behind-the-scenes making-of documentary.
“I always felt like there was a real love there, a true love there. People in my life know that he was a very, very special person in my life. When we reconnected, those feelings for me were still very real,” Lopez told Vogue in December 2022. “There is something innately, magically kind and good and full of love at the heart of who Jennifer is,” Affleck said of Lopez at the time.
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