When Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez rekindled their romance in 2021, he was newly sober and sold her on being “a changed man,” while she was still the attention-seeking pop diva who didn’t necessarily object to cameras following her around, even during their Italian honeymoon.
This is the formula that contributed to stark marital differences, which emerged as soon as their honeymoon, according to Page Six. Now that Lopez, 55, has filed the paperwork for her long-anticipated divorce from Affleck, 52, people who’ve been around the couple are coming forward to talk about when and how things went wrong.
According to Page Six, things went wrong pretty quickly, just after Affleck and Lopez’s lavish Aug. 20, 2022, wedding ceremony at his Georgia estate. The newlyweds headed to picturesque and romantic Lake Como in the foothills of the Alps — where George Clooney has his lakeside villa.
But Affleck and Lopez weren’t alone. No doubt, they were accompanied by the film and music star’s entourage, but soon the paparazzi also turned up. Photographers followed them as they went out to dinner or strolled by the lake, and the couple always made a show for the cameras of being very affectionate with each other.
But the PDA really was for show, the source told Page Six. When they weren’t in front of the cameras, “They would barely speak to each other during what was supposed to be the happiest time of their life,” the source said.
For his part, Affleck “was unhappy with paparazzi following them,” the source explained, a bit incredulously. The source pointed out that Lopez “is an international superstar, and he acted like it came as a surprise that they would be followed around.”
But the other issue is that Affleck had begun to “settle” into his sobriety and a new sense of “normality,” the source said. Affleck had long waged private and public battles with alcohol addiction, which led to repeated stints in rehab, may have played a part in some questionable career choices and no doubt contributed to the end of his marriage to Jennifer Garner in 2018.
Affleck sold Lopez “on being a changed man,” as they rekindled their “puppy love” romance from 20 years earlier, the source said. Affleck and Lopez first dated from 2002 to 2004, when each was an up-and-coming young star in the entertainment world. They nearly got married, but called off the engagement and broke up, laying a lot of the blame on intense media scrutiny.
But intense media scrutiny was inevitable when Affleck and Lopez started seeing each other again in 2021, shortly after she called off her engagement to former MLB star Alex Rodriguez. (Incidentally, Rodriguez appears to have chimed in on his ex-fiancee’s divorce news Wednesday, posting a cryptic social media post that says: “You either go one way or the other, you might as well be the one deciding the direction.”)
When Affleck reconnected with Lopez, he “was just getting sober,” the Page Six source said. “He was in a vulnerable state, and whatever their chemistry played into that … He was in this frenzied, excitable state.”
But the whirlwind of the romance quickly slowed after they married, the source said. As the actor, director and father of three continued to adjust to his sober life, he began to crave more privacy, and he could no longer take Lopez’s level of celebrity, the source said. “He doesn’t want (the entourage) and all the drama that comes with that in his home,” the source said.
Affleck also disagreed with the extent to which his wife wanted to share aspects of their private life to the public. He said as much in “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” the Amazon Prime documentary she released in February and which chronicled their rekindled romance.
The documentary showed Affleck being taken aback when he learned that she had shared his private love letters to her, going back 20 years, with musicians and songwriters working with her on her new album, “This is Me … Now.” The “Good Will Hunting” star had compiled all their written communication to each other into a book that he had given to her on their first Christmas back together in 2021. He said, “Things that are private I always felt are sacred and special because, in part, they’re private.”
In her divorce filing, Lopez listed the date of their separation as April 26. Soon thereafter, reports began to circulate that Affleck and Lopez had separated. At the time, Page Six reported that Affleck would seek “divorce on grounds of temporary insanity” if he could, because he had finally come “to his senses,” following what felt like a “fever dream” of his rekindled relationship with Lopez.
Divorce speculation also heated up. According to In Touch Weekly, a sober, “healthy” and focused Affleck was pressing to end the marriage. His “mind is made up,” a source said. “The divorce is happening,” the source added, as the filmmaker was telling friends that “he’s looking forward to the next chapter. He wants a life with serenity and peace, and escaping this roller coaster will be a relief.”
But even as Affleck wanted out of the marriage, he also tried to be mindful of protecting his wife’s feelings, reports said. That’s why he held off filing for divorce, but there was no way of getting around “humiliating her,” Page Six reported.
“She’s furious. He has humiliated her,” the source said. “He was the one who initiated getting back together. … She made a big deal that he was the love of her life.” The Daily Mail also reported that Lopez decided to file for divorce on Tuesday because it was the two-year anniversary of their Georgia wedding.
“Jennifer said she was tired of being humiliated by Ben and she waited until the two-year anniversary because she wanted to sting,” a source told Daily Mail. “But it did not sting him. He’s been done for a long time and deep down she knows this.”
