Ben Affleck Finally Opened Up About His Jennifer Lopez Divorce

Despite their split in 2024, Ben Affleck continues to praise ex-wife Jennifer Lopez. The actor-director addressed their divorce for the first time in his April GQ cover story, and he shared that he has “nothing but respect” for J.Lo. He also shed some light on what led to the Bennifer 2.0 breakup, saying there was “no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue.”

A “Quotidian” Split

Affleck knows the public is very interested in why his rebooted relationship with Lopez didn’t last — and he gets it. At the same time, he doesn’t think there’s anything extraordinary there to hold people’s attention.

“I guess there’s a tendency to look at breakups and want to identify root causes or something,” he told GQ. However, he added, “The truth is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting.”

He shied away from giving specifics about the divorce and instead lumped theirs in with so many others. “When you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’ Well, there is no: ‘This is what happened,’” he said. “It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do.”

Affleck went on to explain why he didn’t want to open up further, saying, “The reason I don’t want to share that is just sort of embarrassing. It feels vulnerable.”

Debunking A Misconception

Though the two-time Academy Award winner didn’t point to a single cause of the breakup, he did shut down the idea that it came down to him and Lopez being on different pages about how to handle life in the spotlight. They showed the mismatch when he appeared in her 2024 documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, but he told GQ their differing approaches weren’t a deal-breaker.

“I think it’s important to say that wasn’t the cause of some major fracture,” he said. “It’s not like you can watch that documentary and go, ‘Oh, now I understand the issues that these two had.’”

This Is Bennifer… Then And Now

Affleck and Lopez first met on the set of their movie Gigli in 2001. They were outed as a couple in 2002, and thus, Bennifer was born. The two got engaged that November and even planned a September 2003 wedding, but they canceled their nuptials at the last minute due to the media frenzy. Then, in January 2004, they announced they’d decided to split and went on to spend decades apart, each marrying and having kids with another partner.

It wasn’t until May 2021 that there were signs the couple was giving their love story a second chance. After photos of them together and reports of their reunion emerged, they finally went public again that summer. It all led to a second engagement in April 2022, and then a Las Vegas wedding that July, followed by a bonus ceremony in Georgia. Alas, Bennifer again wasn’t to last. After two years of marriage, Lopez filed for divorce on Aug. 20, 2024.

Lopez was the first to address their divorce. Speaking to Interview just weeks later, on Sept. 10, she said she was “not looking for anybody” and she shared a lesson she’d learned: “For people who are romantics and love being in relationships and want to grow old with somebody, we think, ‘I have to have that to be whole and happy.’ And you don’t.”