Awards season is never short of talking points, with this year's Grammys delivering us social media outrage at Beyonce’s Renaissance not winning best album, Bebe Rexha’s show stealing butterfly cut and the moment Kim Petras and Sam Smith made history as the first trans and non-binary (respectively) performers to win a Grammy in the best pop duo/group collaboration category in its 65-year history.
But while you’d think that would be enough to dine out on for a few weeks at least, there was one sub-plot to the evening that viewers couldn’t help but invest in. Many took to Twitter on the evening of the iconic awards to point out that Ben Affleck, attending with his wife Jennifer Lopez, didn’t seem to be in the highest of spirits, first spotted alongside a bopping JLo struggling to muster a singular ounce of enthusiasm for Stevie Wonder and Chris Stapleton’s performance of Higher Ground.
‘Ben Affleck is every introvert everywhere. You can see his batteries draining in real time. Man is already at 23%,’ tweeted one viewer alongside the clip.
‘Ben Affleck is so consistent in his misery I almost have to admire it,’ said another.
But it was a clip from later on in the evening where the couple appeared in shot of one of host Trevor Noah’s pieces to camera that really got people talking, with JLo appearing to have terse words with her husband who, to be fair, looked more animated than he had for the rest of the evening.
Calls for social media sleuths to decode what had been said escalated to the point that MailOnline actually turned to a professional lip-reader to decipher the tense exchange.
Are you ready? Here’s what reportedly was said.
JLo: ‘Stop. Look more friendly. Look motivated.’
Ben: ‘I might.’
Thrilling, right?
Despite the glitz, glam and history making of the evening, Bennifer’s low-key domestic spat was a reminder that even the highest echelons of the A-List are, in many ways, just like us; Jen wanted to let her hair down and celebrate her contemporaries at the most revered event in the music calendar. Ben, meanwhile, looked like he wanted to be at home in his comfies watching the last episode of Happy Valley (probably...maybe).
Afterwards, Jennifer took to Instagram to share some clips of her date ahead of the ceremony and wrote, ‘Always the best time with my love, my husband 🤍’.
And while some accused her of sugar coating the reality of the situation, with one writing, ‘the epitome of Instagram happiness vs. real life misery’ (rude), others pointed out that every marriage comes with good times... and also times when one person would rather have stayed home. Maybe the Grammys just… aren’t Ben’s thing?