Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are officially going their separate ways, after Lopez filed for divorce on Tuesday, August 20, in Los Angeles Superior Court, according to TMZ. The date of separation was officially stated as April 26, and the news was later confirmed by People.
The news comes after growing speculation around the couple’s relationship status. In mid-May, various outlets published reports of rockiness within their marriage: “They just have very different approaches when it comes to media attention. Ben hates all attention and it makes him very uncomfortable. Jennifer has always had a different approach,” an anonymous source told People on May 20. Days earlier, the outlet published a story stating that the couple was living apart. Meanwhile, Page Six reported that a split was inevitable. Then, Lopez suddenly canceled her This Is Me tour: “Jennifer is taking time off to be with her children, family, and close friends,” read the announcement in her newsletter, OnTheJLo.
Now, it’s clear that there was truth to the rumors.
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck married in Riceboro, Georgia on August 20, 2022. At the time, it felt like a fitting ending to a love story 20 years in the making. In November of 2002, after meeting on the set of Gigli, Affleck proposed to Lopez. Just over a year later, however, they called off their wedding. Both went on to marry other people: Lopez was with Marc Anthony, while Affleck was with Jennifer Garner. But a few years after their respective divorces, they reunited.
“I always felt like there was a real love there, a true love there. People in my life know that he was a very, very special person in my life. When we reconnected, those feelings for me were still very real,” Lopez told Vogue in her December 2022 cover story. “There is something innately, magically kind and good and full of love at the heart of who Jennifer is,” Affleck said of his wife at the time.