Jennifer Lopez has filed for divorce from Ben Affleck, two years to the day since their lavish wedding. The singer, 55, filed for divorce at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, without an attorney, on Tuesday, August 20, according to reports by the Daily Mail she listed the date of their separation as April 26th.
The next step is for Lopez to present Affleck with divorce papers. Some reports, which have not been confirmed by the couple, from parties who claim to have seen the documents, indicate Lopez, who had legally changed her last name to Affleck, did not list any details of a prenuptial agreement in her petition for divorce.
She and Affleck, 52, must now share up to date financial information, including their current income, expenses, properties and debts. The court gave Lopez 60 days to file this financial disclosure and Affleck another 60 days.
This official move marks the crescendo of months of headlines about Bennifer and the state of their relationship. While August 20th 2022 was their very public wedding, July 16th marked Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s official two year anniversary as it was two years since their more understated Las Vegas wedding. It was the wedding that might never have happened, after the A-list couple ended their original engagement in 2004. And yet, after proving their critics wrong by reuniting in 2021 and falling in love all over again, twenty years later the couple were once again mired in speculation that their relationship could be on the rocks.
That it was Lopez who filed for divorce comes after reports that she had been somewhat 'blindsided' by Affleck's decision to move out of their marital Beverly Hills home in April. Page Six reported last month that Lopez was 'furious', adding, 'He has humiliated her. He was the one who initiated getting back together.'
The source continued, ‘He’s humiliated her because she made a big deal that he’s the love of her life. They just had two weddings two years ago. This is some kind of a record, they’re not young kids.’
The insider also claimed that Lopez ‘has not fully accepted’ that her two-year marriage is over, particularly as she and Affleck have blended their families. (She is mum to teenage twins Emme and Max with ex-husband Marc Anthony and Affleck shares three children with ex-wife Jennifer Garner, who he split from in 2018). This alleged development follows claims that Affleck and Lopez are ‘no longer speaking’, with the award-winning actor said to have snapped up his own multi-million-dollar property after his marital home was put on the market.
The writing was seemingly on the wall for the couple, however, when they spent a series of milestones apart over the past few weeks. Affleck was absent for his wife’s _Bridgerton-_themed 55th birthday celebrations in the Hamptons and her actual birthday on 24th July, and they failed to reunite for the Fourth of July celebrations or their second wedding anniversary.
The estrangement rumours started in May, not because of Affleck’s perpetually downcast face (although it can’t help things), but, as they often do, with the US tabloids. In Touch magazine spoke with an ‘insider’ who said, ‘It’s over'. They added, ‘They waited almost two decades to get back together, but in the end, they just couldn’t make it work.’ The magazine’s source claimed that Affleck had moved out of their 17 bathroomed Los Angeles house, and was staying at a property in LA neighbourhood Brentwood, where he wanted to ‘focus on his work and his kids’.
The pair later reunited for Ben's son Samuel's graduation in June - although onlookers said the couple 'kept their distance' at the event. The pair were reportedly selling off their belongings, including an impressive art collection, and they put their shared family home on the market. Meanwhile Affleck bought his own bachelor pad in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles at the end of July.
Their reticence to announce a split or file for divorce was said to have come from their desire to keep things as stable for their children as possible. Indeed, Lopez has been seen with Affleck's children Violet and Sam this summer despite not being seen with Affleck himself.
Affleck has three children— Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12 — with Jennifer Garner, 52, while Lopez is mum to 16-year-old twins Emme and Max with ex-husband Marc Anthony. ‘They are committed to remaining close for their children’s sakes,’ said Grazia's source. ‘Their priority is being a stable presence for their blended family.'
But while they’ve been putting on a brave face for the kids, behind the scenes things are obviously not so good. While Affleck is said to be feeling ‘relief’ that things are coming to an official end, Lopez is said to be hurting. ‘Ben has decided he would be happier living out of the spotlight for a while,’ said Grazia’s source. ‘Jen tried to fix things and work on their relationship but it has proven too difficult.’
Neither party has yet commented on the split. At a press conference for her film Atlas in Mexico in May, Lopez was asked point blank if 'the Ben Affleck rumours were real', and laughed it off saying, 'you know better than that.' Her co-star Simu Liu jumped to her defence and said, 'don't come in here with that energy, please.'
They have been seen together only a few times since the rumours began, and attended events solo (something they haven’t tended to do in the last couple of years). Lopez attended the Netflix world premiere of her latest sci-fi film Atlas, without Ben, in May although she was wearing her wedding ring. Apparently, Affleck missed the premiere as he is still filming his new movie, The Accountant 2.
She attended the Met Ball solo earlier this year, and went viral for snapping at a red carpet interviewer who asked her what she was wearing (it was Schiaparelli, in case you were wondering). Affleck also showed up at Netflix’s live roast of NFL star Tom Brady in May, and made what the New York Post described as an ‘unhinged six minute rant’ onstage, laying into online trolls. At the end of the speech Affleck admitted, ‘I’m probably never going to work again, actually, after tonight.’
Online speculation after the event questioned whether Affleck might be going through something at home which had caused him to behave unusually - though his ‘Sad Ben’ persona has already become internet folklore in the past year or so, as photographs of the actor at red carpet events or walking alongside his wife getting coffee show him looking routinely downcast. When asked about the ongoing meme in January, Lopez laughed it off. ‘You don’t need to worry about Ben, let me just tell you,’ she told an interviewer on the red carpet for the Golden Globes, adding, ‘He is good. He is happy.’
Despite the insistence that all was well, Lopez later added fuel to the recent rumours of unrest between her and Affleck when she ‘liked’ a post about healthy relationship boundaries. The post, created by relationship coach Lenna Marsak, discussed the challenges of a relationship where there is no 'integrity and respect.' It features several text slides, beginning with, 'You cannot build a healthy relationship with someone who lacks integrity and emotional safety.'
The pair had been dealing with various tensions this year - with Lopez’s This Is Me… Now album performing worse than expected (reaching only number 38 in the US charts) and some of her tour dates being cancelled because of low ticket sales. Meanwhile, the pair appeared to bring speculation about their relationship upon themselves in the documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told. The film, which came out in February, detailed the highs and lows of their rekindled romance, with Affleck revealing he initially asked his wife to keep their relationship offline when they decided to give things another go.
In the film, Affleck - who went to rehab multiple times for alcohol addiction - admits he had some concern about being thrust further into the public eye and had zero interest in becoming a fixture on his wife's social media accounts. 'Getting back together, I said, “Listen, one of the things I don't want is a relationship on social media,”’ the actor says. 'Then I sort of realised it's not a fair thing to ask. It's sort of like, you're gonna marry a boat captain and you go, "Well, I don't like the water."' He continued: 'We're just two people with different kinds of approaches trying to learn to compromise.' The documentary also saw Lopez sharing private love letters that Affleck wrote to her, a choice which made headlines when Affleck didn’t seem too happy she had done so.
Now, there is the tricky subject of their professional collaboration, a film called Unstoppable which stars Lopez and was produced by Affleck and his best friend Matt Damon. They are due to premiere the anticipated film at the Toronto Film Festival in a matter of weeks. 'It's something they are both really proud of,' said Grazia's source. 'It remains to be seen who gets to promote it...'