As many know, I have been a longtime supporter, promoter and enjoyer of all things Bennifer Redux. I rooted for them to get back together and I was beyond pleased when it all came together in 2021. In J.Lo’s mind, Ben Affleck was the one who got away. In Ben’s mind, he had a lot of regrets about how he cracked under the bright hot spotlight. They came back together when they were older and wiser. They seemed committed to not making the same mistakes as the first time around. They gave less of a f–k about what people said about them. The culture changed too – what was widely mocked in 2003 is celebrated in 2024. So, that’s where I was – a longtime Bennifer Defender. I believed in them and I hoped that Ben wouldn’t f–k it up. Guess what? Jennifer is the one f–king it up.
These are photos from last night’s premiere of This Is Me… Now: A Love Story. That is the “musical film” Jennifer produced alongside her new album of the same name. In her Variety cover story this week, Jennifer makes it clear that no one believed in this musical film, to the point where she had to self-finance to the tune of $20 million. Not only that, many of J.Lo’s longtime friends and allies were like “girl, please don’t do this, this is absolutely bonkers and way too much.” Even Khloe Kardashian refused to take part in the musical. Ben appears in the musical, and the whole thing is about how it took her nearly 20 years to get back to him. Not only that, she did a documentary about their love!!
All of which to say, at the premiere, Ben seemed to be recreating some of the 2002-03 photos where he appeared trapped and looking for the exit ramp. Jennifer wore Zuhair Murad – I don’t like this, but whatever, it’s not offensive. I really have a pit in my stomach about everything else though. I mean, maybe the reaction will be “this is so camp, we love it.” But good lord, I wish J.Lo could just BE happily married and not have to make a musical film and a documentary about her fourth marriage.
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PS… CB made these for me, I feel nauseous!!
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Michael Williams / Avalon, Hubert Boesl/DPA/Cover Images.
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- Hollywood, CA – The premiere of “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story” at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California. Pictured: Jennifer Lopez BACKGRID USA 13 FEBRUARY 2024 BYLINE MUST READ: MediaPunch / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Hollywood, CA – Celebrities attend the Los Angeles premiere of Amazon MGM Studios “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story” at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. Pictured: Jennifer Lopez BACKGRID USA 13 FEBRUARY 2024 BYLINE MUST READ: Juan Rico / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Hollywood, CA – Celebrities attend the Los Angeles premiere of Amazon MGM Studios “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story” at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. Pictured: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez BACKGRID USA 13 FEBRUARY 2024 BYLINE MUST READ: Juan Rico / BACKGRID USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
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- Celebrities at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘This Is Me… Now: A Love Story’ Featuring: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 13 Feb 2024 Credit: Ryan Hartford/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘This Is Me… Now: A Love Story’ Featuring: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 13 Feb 2024 Credit: Ryan Hartford/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘This Is Me… Now: A Love Story’ Featuring: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 13 Feb 2024 Credit: Ryan Hartford/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘This Is Me… Now: A Love Story’ Featuring: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 13 Feb 2024 Credit: Ryan Hartford/INSTARimages.com
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- Celebrities at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘This Is Me… Now: A Love Story’ Featuring: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 13 Feb 2024 Credit: Ryan Hartford/INSTARimages.com
Sigh. I really really hope they make it.
Unfortunately she’s already fucking it up.
To me she seems the real life embodiment of a character in a rom-com, while Affleck has definitely locked himself in at present 🤣🤣🤣
I don’t think they’re going to last but she’s always been this extra in everything so I’m not really surprised she went for album+documentary.
I’ve weird tastes in clothes so I really like hers in these premiere photos.
I love Zuhair Murad but I don’t like what the top of this is doing to her chest. Yeah, he’s gonna make a run for it.
I had forgotten what a cutie he was back in the day!
He seems so checked out of it at this point that I almost feel it has to be intentional, right? Like he wants people to think he’s checked out so in 20 years they can be like “haha here we are still together?” I dont know.
My mom never really had any favorite movie stars or commented on celebs but after seeing Peal Harbor she gushed about how handsome he was. I was gobsmacked, lol.
I thought they were both really cute in the Super Bowl Dunkin’ commercial but alas that is not real life.
He just made a DD ad where she’s the focus and he’s the clown, I doubt he’s that bothered by this movie. I think he doesn’t like being papped on red carpets anymore but he still shows up for her BECAUSE he is in it.
I think so too…at least, I hope so because for some reason I am rooting for these crazy kids. LOL
The DD ad immediately came to mind for me, too, regarding their current dynamic.
Lainey Gossip has a very good, and very different, take on all this.
Agreed, @Kate. Also, the narrative throughout the media of poor baby grown-man Ben and his controlling-wife Jennifer is rife with internalized misogyny. I really wish people could check themselves. She’s not making him do anything he doesn’t want to do. I’m team They Are Fine.
Also it’s probably time to stop judging an entire relationship based on still photos like these. Plenty of still photos make it look like the Wales’ have a loving relationship, lol.
100% agree, it’s the 2024 version of she’s a spicy Latina etc
Not going to lie, I’d be exhausted having to live with her “extra”-ness all the time. I think eventually, it’s going to wear him down, if it hasn’t already started, he may not leave but he will shut down, and she’ll go looking for someone else with stars in their eyes for her. Of course, my interpretation may be completely wrong. I don’t understand what she has to prove. She won her prize.
Yeah, I don’t get why she feels the need to do this. He looks like he is on something to make him this relaxed and loved up in front of the cameras. I don’t doubt he loves her and he might be like this in private, but it looks so out of character for him to do this on a red carpet.
He’s gonna bolt. Just waiting for the right opportunity.
I’m not going to make a judgment about the music film until it actually comes out and I see the thing but what I read in the variety article made me cringe in second hand embarrassment. Jane Fonda even told she was rooting for her fourth marriage but “this is absurd,” she added. “Like, it feels too much like you’re trying to prove something instead of just living it. You know, every other photograph is the two of you kissing and the two of you hugging.” Agreed -listen to your elders! Not only that she has another documentary also coming out – her second documentary of her life in as many years. The woman really wants to be a kardashian and it’s over sharing to that embarrassing level. She also described how Ayo gave her an apology coming to her with “tears in her eyes” and details where she made it sound like Ayo was was kissing her ring. When all she needed to say was yes, Ayo apologized.
The embarassing thing is that most people agree with Ayo at least to the extent that JLo can’t sing very well. She’s a performer for sure, and has been a savvy businesswoman and deseverfes credit for that. But the self-awareness is a bit lacking.
Great advice from Jane. This film just feels like the amplified version of gushing about your significant other on Facebook when things are really a mess at home. The second hand embarrassment/cringe factor is intense with this one.
I actually feel sorry for Ben. It must be hard being married to a narcissist (just as I’m sure it was hard for his ex to be married to a cheater with a drinking problem, but I digress). And also – maybe this is why he sabotaged things the first time around (I mean besides his own obvious issues). I actually do like them together. I think their love is real. But her incessant need to commodify everything in her life is unhealthy. And doesn’t bode well for ANY relationship. Which is why I think most of her have failed.
Also Ayo apologized because it was the right thing to do but…there was not a SINGLE lie told in what she said in that podcast.
FACTS.
This is all so painfully cringe it’s hard to believe – but I think this is also what she has left to pull in terms of big future projects. A lot has changed since 2003 and one of those things is the general public interest in another JLo album or film. She’s a great on stage performer, but she’s no singer and no actor. I get having to do do self funded projects at this point, but good lord, it could have been about literally anything other than her fourth marriage to the guy who “got away” (ran away).
Actually, JLo’s The Mother was Netflix’s highest streamed film last year. And, Shotgun Wedding was the #2 streamed movie on Prime in 2023. She still has appeal which is why Amazon purchased this film and held a premier.
Wow! I would never have guessed that. I keep thinking that if both critics and audiences pan something as rotten on all accounts it must mean no one is watching it, but that clearly isn’t the case. Gosh, I’ll be honest though, it makes me even more confused about why in the world she would choose to spend 20 million of her own cash to back this cringe of an idea, and worse yet, tripled down on it. I was thinking it was because her options were limited.
Honestly I think he’s having a good time. You cannot tell me the Dunkin promos didn’t tie in well. I have hope for the two of them. They are both clearly addicts. His drug of choice, alcohol and work. Hers, work and love. It’s entirely possible that they have enough maturity and self awareness that they are in couples counseling. Let’s be real, Ben knows who she is. She has ALWAYS been over the top. He knows what her love language is, and I’m sure she knows what his is. I definitely noticed since she’s moved to LA her street style has mostly toned down, she switches between heels and flats and mutes her look subtly. For her, she has mellowed a bit.
Pictures are so misleading. When you look at the video footage of these moments from last night, it’s not anywhere as bad as the pictures make it seem. There are really adorable clips of him standing off to the side smiling while filming her on his phone, him rubbing her back during the after party, him muttering seemingly sweet words to her before they enter the venue, etc. I think he’s always going to be awkward when cameras/attention are on them in these settings and we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that he’s miserable and wants out of the relationship. People were saying all kinds of horrible things about them based on how he looked on their honey moon, but now here we are almost 2 years later.
She seems to be in the everyone loves us mode. Therefore, everyone wants more of us. Or maybe it is ,everyone loves me, and wants more of me.
Curious to see if the musical mentions those Boston Herald inside track blurbs about Bennifer. I feel terrible now, looking back on it, but, my God those b!tches were racist. I didn’t see the harm that those stories were doing to Jennifer. They basically called her a hoe based on nothing other than she was a “saucy Latina” (gag)
The relief when Ben took “bland Jennifer” to a Red Sox game was palpable. Terrible times.
He’s really not the prize she thinks he is.
Neither is she.
She can have him. I sure as hell don’t want him!
He’s gross but at least he’s intelligent in a streetwise way. JLo is smart but just not intelligent – no depth or curiosity about anything but self-actualising through this excessive celebritism. Maybe it’s insecurity or whatever; who knows where that kind of fanaticism comes from.
I’ve seen video from the red carpet and the afterparty and Ben was having a great time. Can’t wait to see this film!
This is verging on some strange mania. She’s marketing herself as “the sultry romantic,” then gets all salty and sad when people don’t cast her in Meryl Streep roles. And Khloe K? Let me just get a vomit bucket for gods’s sake.
Look up Histrionic Personality Disorder.
Hm, interesting – it’s definitely something. I remember their first go-round when she was out of control with nonstop hamming for the press and insane spending, even supposedly buying him a Bentley or matching Bentleys for them. Does anyone really have to overtly aggrandize their love if they’re actually feeling it? Isn’t the feeling enough? She cannot be happy, that much is too obvious.
I have my reminder set for Feb 16 – I can’t wait for this buffoonery!
Right??? I am loving every minute of this!! I make no predictions & I’m just enjoying the spectacle.
She cleans up very well. Those close-ups of her at the Schiaparelli Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2024 show were NOT flattering.
I find her exhausting in her obsession with fame/celebrity as a life-defining mythology, but whatever gives you joy. She really believes in all this sh!t.
The opposite has got to be Cillian Murphy, who’s so chill and calm about fame/attention and does the promotion stuff because it’s what he has to do to lock in the acting work. Other celebs are ironic about their fame.
This woman is setting herself up to be Norma Desmond.
IMO Ben Affleck was a younger, more restless man back then; he’s exhausted and is happy to be riding on her energy.