In the past few days, it actually feels like the speculation about Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s marriage has gotten a bit quieter. In the sense that “sources” are no longer spilling their guts to Us Weekly, People Magazine and Page Six. That’s how we figured out that something was happening last week – In Touch Weekly got the ball rolling on “divorce rumors,” then other outlets were like “wait, maybe something IS up with Bennifer.” J.Lo is currently promoting her latest Netflix movie, Atlas, which is getting bad reviews. While the promo tour was in Mexico City, J.Lo had an interaction with a Mexican journalist which went viral – the journo asked Jen directly about the rumors and Jen shut the guy down, saying “you know better than that.” According to TMZ, Netflix had already told the assembled journalists to avoid questions about Ben:
All Bennifer questions are off-limits, at least if you’re media covering Jennifer Lopez for her new movie — and reporters were warned about it before she arrived … TMZ has learned. Sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ … Netflix alerted all the media outlets covering the Hollywood and Mexico City premieres for “Atlas” that no Ben Affleck, and no personal queries were allowed.
We’re told they were also informed J Lo would only do group interviews with her costars Sterling K. Brown and Simu Liu by her side — the studio’s version of calling in backup. This strategy seemed pretty obvious over the last few days — no one at the Hollywood premiere, earlier this week, raised the topic of Ben … even though, by that point, everyone knew he and J Lo were living apart.
That plan didn’t go as smoothly Wednesday night in Mexico. As we reported, Jennifer reacted sharply when a reporter asked about her marriage during a panel discussion in Mexico City. She chastised the reporter with, “You know better.”
Here’s the thing: while I have no doubt that Netflix told entertainment journalists to avoid questions about Ben, that’s pretty standard for promotion when it comes to a tabloid-bait celebrity. Jennifer is a pro, and she handled that question easily and was able to shut it down herself. It’s not some huge scandal, no one was “told off” and no one had their press credentials yanked. Netflix is probably pleased that the minor controversy is part of the promotion.
Meanwhile, Ben Affleck was once again seen without his wedding ring… as he went to the set of The Accountant 2. It feels like he probably just didn’t wear his ring because he didn’t want to lose it when he changed into his costume? Still, I enjoyed the Daily Mail’s hilarious coverage of Bennifer’s separate vibes:
Jennifer Lopez is pouring herself into her work — and her fitness routine — as rumors continue to swirl that her marriage to Ben Affleck is headed for divorce. On Thursday, the singer, 54, was spotted leaving a dance studio in Los Angeles after another grueling rehearsal before her tour kicks off in June. She had her chiseled abs on full display in a bright yellow crop top as she walked to her parked SUV.
Meanwhile, Affleck, 51, happily indulged himself on Thursday as he was seen puffing on a cigarette in his car before ordering pizza to his $100k-per-month Brentwood rental mansion. He’s been living at the property — located just two blocks away from his ex Jennifer Garner — for the last few weeks as he shoots his new film The Accountant 2 amid the JLo split rumors.
How much of this marital discord is just about Ben wanting some peace and quiet to smoke cigarettes and eat junk food? The thing is, I doubt Jennifer is even bothered by Ben’s unhealthy habits. She’s super-healthy, for sure, but she doesn’t seem to “make” Ben live a certain way. The man keeps a soda fountain in his office and has Dunkin Donuts delivered, Jennifer knows she can’t change him.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.
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- Jennifer Lopez at the Netflix premiere of Atlas on May 20, 2024 at the Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles, California.,Image: 875021017, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/Faye Sadou / Avalon
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- Jennifer Lopez at the Netflix premiere of Atlas on May 20, 2024 at the Egyptian Theatre Hollywood in Los Angeles, California.,Image: 875021654, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: imago is entitled to issue a simple usage license at the time of provision. Personality and trademark rights as well as copyright laws regarding art-works shown must be observed. Commercial use at your own risk., Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGO/Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon
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- Santa Monica, CA – Busy actor Ben Affleck clutches a pack of menthol cigarettes as he arrives at a meeting in Santa Monica. Pictured: Ben Affleck BACKGRID USA 4 MAY 2024 BYLINE MUST READ: 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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- Burbank, CA – Jennifer Lopez was seen leaving Mihran K. Dance Studio in Burbank, still wearing a ring. Pictured: Jennifer Lopez BACKGRID USA 17 MAY 2024 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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- Brentwood, CA – Despite the recent divorce rumors, couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are all smiles as they are spotted together in Ben’s car after attending a family event in Brentwood. Pictured: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck BACKGRID USA 19 MAY 2024 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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- Los Angeles, CA – Amid the recent divorce rumors, couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are are spotted arriving together at BOA Steakhouse in Los Angeles. Pictured: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck BACKGRID USA 19 MAY 2024 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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- Los Angeles, CA – Amid the recent divorce rumors, couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are are spotted arriving together at BOA Steakhouse in Los Angeles. Pictured: Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck BACKGRID USA 19 MAY 2024 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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- Mexico City ‘Atlas’ Fan Event at Plaza Toreo Parque Central Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: Mexico City, Mexico When: 21 May 2024 Credit: EyePix/INSTARimages
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- Mexico City ‘Atlas’ Fan Event at Plaza Toreo Parque Central Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: Mexico City, Mexico When: 21 May 2024 Credit: EyePix/INSTARimages
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- Mexico City ‘Atlas’ Fan Event at Plaza Toreo Parque Central Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: Mexico City, Mexico When: 21 May 2024 Credit: EyePix/INSTARimages
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- Press Conference Of ‘Atlas’ at Mexico City St. Regis Hotel Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: Mexico City, Mexico When: 22 May 2024 Credit: EyePix/INSTARimages
Man child gonna child.
Exactly. This is not a guy who puts the work into a relationship. Who cares if she put his love letters into her new music. No one is listening to it anyway.
I was drinking coffee and then the coffee was on my leg…you have to put a warning on words like that 🤣!
BettyRose, Love your summary of the situation!
Bennifer: like a 90s rock band, a mess then, and a mess now.
I really love that Chloé ruffled cape that Jen is wearing. She looks so pretty.
Sooooo pretty!!!
Gah – I truly hope I’m wrong about a late Friday Memorial Day Weekend announcement, but I still think that’s the case. Makes me sad because I’m rooting for them – most of us have had a messy chaotic relationship full of a lot of love and passion that reminds us of being young and crazy but just…can’t sustain itself. I really actually wanted this for them.
Both of them should be off from promoting & filming after this week ends. Monday is Memorial Day holiday. It should be interesting if they spend it together , regardless of them wearing rings or not. I would think that Ben’s character in the Accountant is NOT MARRIED, so he should not be wearing a wedding ring while filming. She is not filming now & she would draw attention now if she didn’t. Her movie Atlas is supposedly getting bad reviews now & she will be doing her concert tours in a few weeks…
As I’ve said from the beginning of this recoupling, I have big doubts. But also, this story about his ring is ridiculous. Kaiser is right, actors don’t wear their personal rings to set.
Plus, even though Jlo is known to be rude on set, she had every right to shut that question down. questions for stars are definitely contained at big junkets.
If people don’t like that, they can push for change to open things up a bit, but it probably won’t work given how a lot of U.S. media is owned by entitles with stakes in production. Yes, I know that question wasn’t asked by US media, but they do set the standards and like the royal family they have the media in their pocket now.
I agree the ring story is nothing, but i also think it’s correct that just wants to be alone to live his unhealthy lifestyle and not be hassled.
I totally see that in him! I just don’t know why they had to do this again given the fundamental issues, but here we are.
As much as Jen is a “problem,” Ben’s seemingly unmanaged alcoholism and self sabotage are a bigger nightmare and I feel for her on that.
I second those emotions, Bettyrose.
Both of them should be off from promoting & filming after this week ends. Monday is Memorial Day holiday. It should be interesting if they spend it together , regardless of them wearing rings or not. I would think that Ben’s character in the Accountant is NOT MARRIED, so he should not be wearing a wedding ring while filming. She is not filming now & she would draw attention now if she didn’t. Her movie Atlas is supposedly getting bad reviews now & she will be doing her concert tours in a few weeks…
The sun rises every day.
There are 365 days in a year.
Ben A. is smoking a cigarette within the shadows of LA emotionally agonizing over his addictive brain structure which causes severe impulsivity as well as profound ambivalence.
Adding in the additional behavior of Jennifer L. who is vehemently rejecting questions about her relationship with Ben A.
Because the questions don’t speak to the narrative of what she tried to push upon the public.
This is a celebrity who flaunts her relationship, exploits her partner and herself as often as possible and who has gone so far as to produce an album, movie and documentary about her relationship.
I must have been living under a rock, but I’m surprised to hear that Affleck still smokes. Not sure I agree that JLo wouldn’t be bothered by that. I think it’s possible she let him THINK his unhealthy habits wouldn’t bother her — but now that the honeymoon glow has worn off (again), she’s on him to clean up his act. But Affleck is an addict, and he wants his own way, so naturally it’s put a strain on their relationship.
If it were me I would dump him for smoking cigarettes.
Jen2 should not have to answer personal questions at a professional event.
She gave consent to her documentary: that does not give anyone carte blanche to the rest of her life. Just what she chooses to share.
Whether Ben agrees or not is between them.
As for knowing she can’t change him, I think that’s exactly what she wants & is trying to do. Change him to be the version she can sell, to herself & the world.
Also, I didn’t know he smoked. Again, an addict has their preferred outlet to their demons (alcohol for Ben) but when they can’t have it, any substitute will do. Gambling, food, cigarettes.
I think the ring story blew up do to him very obviously covering his left hand with a sweatshirt. When he was picking up his son from school. That has nothing to do with working on set.
I still think they are going through a rough patch and Ben relapsed. He looks better in recent pictures. I still think they will pull through and not split up.
Maybe this is just their love language and have been this way with each other since they first dated. With the back and forth together, not together, together, not together, rinse and repeat.
I think he relapsed too. That’s why she’s not saying anything and is carrying on with her activities as if nothing is wrong.
I don’t have a dog in this fight – they’re both incredibly wealthy, successful people in their 50s and while neither age nor money make you immune to problems/addiction/mental health struggles, they both have the means to be doing a lot better if they really wanted to.
That said, if the guy is taking his ring off to shoot, it’s not at all unlikely that sometimes he forgets to put it on when he isn’t. And given the intense scrutiny of “ring watch” and him not wanting to be bothered about it, yeah, of course he’s trying to cover up his hand. That’s a very normal reaction to a very not normal situation. I wear 4 rings 24/7, and only occasionally remove 3 of them. Once in awhile, I forget to put them back on afterwards, because I’m so used to turn basically bring glued to my fingers & I’m thinking about other stuff. This guy has been married I think 3x? with long periods of being unmarried, is frequently shooting movies, and has a ton of other things on his mind. I’m surprised he EVER remembers to wear it, frankly, and he’s also enough of a grown-a** man that he understands the ring itself only matters as much as you decide it does. They’re obviously not doing well and maybe they are splitting, I don’t know or especially care. But hiding his hand, on a school run in particular, is nothingburger territory.
Yes, they are obviously going through a rough patch and at the very least decided to live separately for a bit.
But I HATE “ring watch” because it means nothing. Sometimes people don’t wear them, even when they’re perfectly happy & content in their marriage. ESPECIALLY an actor on his way to and from set.
True story, my husband and I haven’t worn our wedding rings for years because we became too fat and with swollen hands and fingers they became too small 😅
I’m excited for The Accountant 2. I only recently watched The Accountant and I really liked it.
Workman were reported now building a higher wall for privacy where Ben is staying now. Ben obviously is planning on staying there for awhile. Ben got impulsive & picked out another house with zero privacy!
It’s over. When Ben heavily relapsed and only got worse part of it was over the shame of divorcing and what it was doing to his children. He acknowledged it really affected him as a child of divorced parents and how much his father’s alcoholism affected him. He said he could not face feeling the pain of what he was doing to his children and drank even more. Plus, at the time, he was away on location more, which meant in reality he wasn’t even going to be able to see his children 50 percent of the time. Ben has a grandmother and I believe it was an uncle who committed suicide. One was addicted to some drug. Two grandfathers and a father who were alcoholics. He said mental illness and addiction runs in his family. He has admitted he suffers from depression, or did, and suffers from anxiety. He is sober. But to my eyes he is white-knuckling it. I feel for him. It’s one day at a time.
Why do I say this? There is no way in hell that he is putting his children through this again unless this move out is real. In other words, he is divorcing her. It’s not just a separation to work on things. Whatever has been going on has been going on for a while behind the scenes. A lot of issues we will never hear about.
What struck me with Jen’s overwhelming desire to show their once-in-a-lifetime love and splashing those letters about was the fact that she has stepchildren who adore their mother. Some posters on Lipstick Alley brought up a good point when she was promoting those letters from Ben over the years stating how disrespectful it was in regards to his children. I wonder: How do the kids, especially Violet and Finn, feel about this? As a daughter of a mother I loved so much, I can’t imagine having to hear incessantly about this.
They are in a house filled with teens, except for little Sam, who is fast approaching, though. That’s not an easy time in raising children, especially more than one. Even J-Lo admitted it is a time where your children are challenging everything you say and it can be up and down. I get that.
Max seems to have totally withdrawm from wanting to be papped. She did manage to get some photos with him on the trip she took with the twins for their sixteenth birthday. He only smiled once in the photos. I think he’s a teenager and not up for being on Jen’s instagram or part of the pap-hounding on outings.
No big family trip this year that we’ve heard of. I wonder how long the issues have been going on?
Max has never liked the paparazzi or reacted well to them There are videos of him reacting badly to them when he was much younger so Jlo kept him more out of the public eye. Jlo gave an interview years ago with I do believe Ellen. She never said what Max was diagnosed with, just hinted about it and how she had a hard time handling him and how Casper Z( who she was dating at the time ) was much better with him.
@Erica, interesting. I do believe that Max goes to a different school than Emme.
I think the men in J-Lo’s life bond with Max and are more patient with him and maybe understand his rambunctious energy.
I remember reading this about Max’s bond with A-Rod:
“Maximilian Muñiz formed quite a close bond with the new man in his life during his mom Jennifer Lopez’s now former romance with baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez. Lopez dished on her son and A-Rod’s relationship during Oprah Winfrey’s “2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus” event in March 2020, telling Winfrey (via People), “Max said something like, ‘Alex is the only one who doesn’t ever get mad at me.’ Because Max is the one who always gets in trouble in the house.” She explained that Rodriguez, a dad to two girls from a previous relationship, showed a lot of compassion to her son, sharing, “Max is all over the place and he’s the most beautiful boy and the most loving boy. But he will knock this over in a second. … All you hear through the house is ‘Max!’ all the time. And Alex had this amazing patience with him.”
” J.Lo is currently promoting her latest Netflix movie, Atlas, which is getting bad reviews.”
Ya don’t say.
I just watched the trailer for it, and it is so bad that it’s like a spoof.
Watching it now.
It’s fine. It is what it is, a pseudo sci fi to showcase jlo.
If you can believe she’s a whip smart genius who outsmarts even computers, who has zero social skills & defies authority yet still is employed & protected, then watch it.
She looks ridiculous because she’s smart, because she wears her glasses.
But! We love sci fi & the dirigibles are cool. So it’s fine, just don’t have expectations.
I watched Atlas and The Mother last night. Atlas is not some profound meditation on AI and doesn’t pretend to be. It was watchable (and I don’t even like JLo) and JLo should stick to action dramas or action SF like this; they’re her best genres. She’s fit and can bring up the fiery-action emotions. (Can’t stand rom-coms so can’t comment on JLo’s track record in that area.) It’s just a typical Netflix action film that’s not better or worse than Extraction, The Old Guard, etc.
She was fine in The Mother too, but felt sorry for Joseph Fiennes and Gael García Bernal as they had cardboard-cutout-evil-moustached-villain roles.
I feel neutral about these two but hopeful they can work it out. Both seem to have deep trauma wounds that are hard to sort out. They both seem complicated, but there are five kids in this situation so I hope they can resolve this–it’s better for the story, too, no?
As for the letters in the documentary, I know what’s been commented on here on CB, I have not seen the doc itself. HOWEVER, as a producer on the film, he would have known about the inclusion of the letters as when she pitched the project, all throughout shooting, footage review, the assembly, rough cut and so on. While I do think it’s wierd to share publicly something so private, I don’t know it’s key point of contention.
(I am delighted though that J Garner is reported to have said he needs to work it out with JLo.)
Jeez, these people are in their 50s. At that age you do what you want and wear what you want. I stopped wearing my wedding ring because I garden pretty seriously and am often up to my elbows in stuff I don’t want on my nice jewelry. Sounds like Ben has work related reasons for leaving the rings at home, too, but really it’s ridiculous to speculate. If they split they’ll be sure to let us know—probably in more detail than anyone wants.
Amen Keke!
Still holding out hope they can work it out!!! I am not interested in either of them separately but have a thing for them together.
Yep, I don’t particularly like or have much interest for these two but have the same sentiments as you.
I adore Sterling K. Brown (and am hot for him) and he deserves ALL the attention because he is an amazing actor, gorgeous and sexy. I have no idea nor do I care what his real-life situation is but he is a much bigger deal and much more talented than JLo (and a much better actor than Ben). He should be a MUCH bigger star than he is. He deserves that.
He and Mark Strong were good in Atlas. He was in that film with Blake Lively.
Forgot to mention Simu was good too.
I’m hoping they stick it out. Aside from all the insane media attention and annoyed Ben face I think these two actually love and respect each other. I think he humors her shenanigans cause he accepts that’s who she is. The man filmed a music video for her song On my way, he filmed scenes for her weird doc, he PRODUCED said documentary and is always gushing over her in interviews. They may have hit a rough patch cause she is always doing WAY TOO MUCH stuff and its probably annoying for a spouse to deal with. He also may have relapsed from all the stress. Regardless for their kids sake, I hope they make it work. All those kids (minus Max cause he is rarely seen) seem to really like each other and have fun together.