Jennifer Lopez celebrated her second-wedding-ceremony anniversary on August 20 with, uh, flair: She filed for divorce from husband Ben Affleck. Lopez’s move marked another twist in the decades-spanning Bennifer saga. It started as your classic Hollywood meet-cute: Pop star and Hollywood star fall in love while filming a flop (Gigli in 2001), get engaged, then call it off within a few years. Fast-forward about 20 years, and the love story picked back up again when Bennifer 2.0 launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, not long after Lopez split from then-fiancé Alex Rodriguez. Even though they’ve racked up four divorces between the two of them (three for Lopez, one for Affleck), Lopez’s semi-autobiographical $20 million self-funded movie, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story, promised us that she still believes in love and second chances with Affleck. But that was back in February, and by June, the couple had reportedly put their $60 million Beverly Hills marital estate on the market. After months apart, everything culminated when Lopez filed divorce paperwork without a lawyer. Court papers obtained by “Page Six” indicate that Lopez cited irreconcilable differences for their breakup. She reportedly doesn’t want either of them to get spousal support and wants to change her legal surname back to Lopez. There are unconfirmed reports that the high-powered (and mega-rich) Hollywood power couple didn’t ink a prenup, which, if true, means they have to identify who lands what assets. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Lopez is worth $400 million, and Affleck is worth $150 million.
So who needs the better “Accountant” and who will use this romance to bolster their career? We asked Holly Davis, a veteran divorce and family-law attorney who co-founded Kirker Davis, LLP, about their cinematic ending.
What did you think when you first heard that Lopez filed her divorce papers on their second-wedding-ceremony anniversary?
When people file for divorce on a particular date, there’s a lot we can intuit about that. I think she’s upset. It’s very symbolic that she’s filing for divorce on a date that was special for them after divorce rumors were breaking for two months. It’s very dramatic.
It’s been claimed that Affleck and Lopez didn’t have a prenup. What does that mean?
A prenup really secures your right to assets that you had coming into marriage, and it could also secure your right to assets that you create after marriage. It’s a really important document that celebrities and people with a meaningful amount of money should put into place. It allows a celebrity to be clear they have already negotiated who’s going to get which items and assets and takes a lot of the guesswork out of a divorce.
Are you surprised to hear that claim knowing how much each of them are worth?
It is absolutely wild to me. It tells me that Ben and Jen led with their hearts and maybe not necessarily their head. However, I don’t think this is going to be a really dramatic, drawn-out, nasty, bitter divorce à la Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan, because each of these stars are so independently wealthy that they don’t need to go after funds.
Without a prenup, what would each side get?
As far as the property rules in California, separate assets that you had are awarded to you and joint assets are split evenly. That seems really simple, but a lot of the argument in California divorces is “So what is my separate property and what is community?” For Ben and Jen, I would imagine they have two years of joint property, including that house. Hopefully they didn’t mingle a lot of their assets that they had prior to marriage.
What is your general advice to any celebrity who might be getting hitched?
When you’re getting married, you want to safeguard yourself and make sure that your partner is in love with the real you and not just the image of you — and one way to do that is with a prenup. My advice for celebrities getting married is to do a lot of soul searching about how this person is going to be incorporated in and react to the strangeness of your life. Celebrities have different finances, different problems than the rest of the world. You’ve got to have a partner who’s going to be able to adapt to an alien lifestyle.
Does Lopez have to give her engagement ring back?
No. That’s a gift. Whenever you give a person a puppy or a car with a bow on it, then people get to keep those as their separate property.
Her legal last name is Affleck — does she have to do anything to officially change it back?
In most cases, you just have to file a request with the court to get your name changed. A lot of people do that as part of the finalization of the terms of their divorce.
In the beginning stages of the Kim Kardashian–Kanye West divorce, Kim was declared single and dropped the name “West” before things were finalized. How would something like that work?
In California, a divorce can be granted, but your terms are not yet finalized.
Theoretically she could marry No. 5 before the dust settles with this?
If your divorce is granted, even if the terms aren’t finalized, she could.
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