Bennifer: Back to the Streets
Or: My therapist, Dr. Fat Joe, will be hearing about this. (The Friday Post.)
This weekend in the Hung Up chat: catch up on Love Is Blind UK and/or watch the latest Industry ep with us!
Rest in peace Bennifer Redux, the genuinely iconic re-coupling that involved a lot of giggling and carrying on from May 2021 until approximately April 2024. The whirlwind it’s-2004-again love story between Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck came to its official end on Tuesday, their second wedding anniversary, when Lopez filed to end their two-year marriage. “J Lo filed legal docs Tuesday in L.A. County Superior Court, but they were not filed by a lawyer,” per TMZ, which broke the news. “Jennifer filed pro per, meaning by herself and without an attorney.”
It has been a summer of waiting for the other platform stiletto to drop. Last year Affleck and Lopez had a series of vacations, premieres, and papp shots. This summer J.Lo celebrated her birthday in a Bridgerton-themed blowout in the Hamptons that Affleck didn’t attend; he skipped her summer Euro trip, too. “[Lopez] tried really hard to make things work and is heartbroken,” a source told People of the split. Another said outright that Affleck was not interested in working on their relationship: “[Lopez is] very disappointed and sad, but Ben hasn't given her any signs that he wants to continue their marriage.” In the filing, Lopez listed the date of separation as the release date of Challengers, April 26, 2024. (Josh O’Connor has broken another home.) She’s asking to reinstate her maiden name; they had two wedding ceremonies, a pair of matching tattoos, and perhaps no pre-nup.
It’s ironic that their final public appearance together was the premiere of The Greatest Story Never Told, the multimedia vanity project J.Lo made to consummate their love. There was an album, “This Is Me … Now,” a sequel to 2002’s “This Is Me … Then,” a movie (music video) of that album, and a documentary about the making of both. In the doc, Lopez shows off twenty years of love letters she exchanged with Affleck, which he had bound into a book. She shares these letters with her music collaborators, who nickname Ben “Pen Affleck.”
“I did really find the beauty and the poetry and the irony in the fact that it’s the greatest love story never told,” Affleck says in the doc. “If you’re making a record about it, that seems kind of like telling it.” In May, Affleck moved out of the home they purchased together as Lopez co-chaired the Met Gala.
Since the beginning of Bennifer’s second act, that one are-they-or-aren’t-they spring and summer when some people swore up and down that their surprise trip to Montana together was all a publicity stunt to get people to see a Ridley Scott movie,1 I have been inclined to believe that things are, more often than not, as they seem. Affleck would bring up Lopez in interviews randomly, and contributed a quote to her InStyle cover story2 in May 2021. Lopez was in the middle of a dramatic breakup from A-Rod when this all went down. It certainly seemed like something went down between A-Rod and a Bravolebrity, and shortly after the two split. Was there ever clarity on the timeline between J-Rod and Bennifer Redux? Not really and who cares.
And now four Leo seasons, two wedding ceremonies, two years betrothed, and two matching tattoos later, they’re done. The steampunk heart factory, as depicted in This Is Me … Now the film, has run out of rose petals.
Can you claim divorce on account of too much dip on my chip? Divorce on account of too much nostalgia? Lopez’s filing cited “irreconcilable differences,” but in May a source told Page Six that the difference was basically Ben. “If there was a way to divorce on grounds of temporary insanity, he would,” the source said. “He feels like the last two years was just a fever dream, and he’s come to his senses now and understands there is just no way this is going to work.”
Was the documentary him trying to make it work? I watched that movie once and cannot imagine watching it again. (The doc is much better, and makes much more sense, and also doesn’t feature Fat Joe as a therapist.) “Getting back together, I said, ‘Listen, one of the things I don't want is a relationship on social media.’ And then I realized it's not a very fair thing to ask," Affleck says in one scene. “It's like you're going to marry a boat captain, and you go, ‘Well, I don't like the water.’ You know? We're just two people with different approaches trying to learn to compromise.”
I’ve said it a million times: devoted Hung Up readers will recall that there are two types of Leos. There is the absurdly main character, microphone-on-me-at-all-times, spotlight-conjuring, has-never-felt-a-small-emotion, doing their big one-Leo — let’s call this the Jennifer Lopez way. What could be a better thesis of this than Lopez making an album to make a movie to make a documentary just to have another wedding only to ruin her marriage? There is also the subtler (dare I say more demure?) Leo, the one who has very specific needs and whims, who will go nonverbal if those needs aren’t met. This type is high maintenance but cosplays as low maintenance. Let’s say they don’t insist on the spotlight, but they certainly aren’t interested in living without it. Tell me if that reminds you of what you know about Ben Affleck.
Alex Rodriguez, also a Leo, seemed to weigh in on his ex’s big breakup. He posted a graphic of a quote, apparently delivered by himself, to his IG story. “You either go one way or the other, you might as well be the one deciding the direction,” the quote read. Let’s just say the high school athlete comes through heavy in that sentence and leave it at that. (A source told People the quote “had nothing to do” with the Bennifer news.)
I fully believe that Bennifer will marry and divorce in another 20 years. The commonality between a person who makes an album to make a movie to make a documentary and a person who has a giant (unfinished) tattoo of a phoenix rising from the ashes on his back is just too great. They belong together, yoyoing between falling together and falling out. They have gone from meeting and breaking up over Gigli3 (and the subsequent fallout) to rekindling and breaking up over “This Is Me … Now” (and the subsequent fallout) to getting back together and breaking up over whatever de-aged romance narrative J.Lo directs and distributes in 2044. The cardinal sin of Jennifer Lopez is that she will not tolerate a man embarrassing her; it took Ben Affleck moving out of their house and riding a motorcycle while not speaking to her to prompt the divorce filing we’ve been anticipating all summer. They’re not done yet.
My life is dominated by the Sabrina Carpenter EP “Short n’ Sweet,” particularly “Taste” and “Good Graces.”
And speaking of: Shawn Mendes would not have lasted even two minutes in the asylum where they raised me (Morning Star Baptist Church). And I’ll leave it at that. (His Twitter)
It is finally safe to say that Amanda Gorman is just not a very good poet. (Thank you Alex)
Donald Trump posted AI-generated images faking a Taylor Swift endorsement, certainly prompting a call from Tree Paine. (PopBase) Peyton and I discussed this on this week’s ep of “Lemme Say This,” and Pey correctly predicted that Team Tree would say nothing.
Chappell Roan complained about fans’ overfamiliar treatment of her. I empathize! But also Lady Gaga did not go no sleep, bus, club, another club, nother club, plane, next place, no sleep no fear for her daughters to act this way. (PopCrave)
Peyton and I were on the DeuxMoi podcast. And speaking of Peyton: we have Challengers at home.
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That’s all this week! Thank you for reading. This weekend I’m seeing Blink Twice and trying to figure out why the hell Steven and Sabrina do not appear to be together in the trailer for the Love Is Blind UK reunion. Are you watching this season? Should I write about it? Have a good weekend!
On the one hand can you imagine. On the either hand if any movie deserved a big publicity stunt it was The Last Duel, which was pretty great.
This was the cover shoot that was supposed to launch the "Love Don't Cost A Thing" challenge that wasn't.
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Peyton and I were on an episode of “The Big Flop” podcast, hosted by Misha Brown, talking about Gigli:
I get that it’s impossible to know famous people but also how is it that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are supposedly best friends? They seem like completely different people and not in a “you complete” complementary kind of way.
“Josh O’Connor has broken another home.”
Belly laugh
Please allow this very pale heterosexual to compliment Peyton on her provocative banana eating