Well, it finally happened... again! Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have split after two years of marriage. The actress filed for divorce on 20 August in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, on the second anniversary of their wedding in Georgia, Atlanta. The filing came after months of speculation over their relationship.
The couple, also known as 'Bennifer', tied the knot in Las Vegas on 16 July 2022, before a formal wedding ceremony at Ben's home in Georgia the following month. It marks the apparent end of Jennifer and Ben's love story, after they first fell in love in 2003 after starring in Gigli. They got engaged and were set to marry, but broke things off, only to rekindle their romance nearly 20 years later.
Their split also marks the end of Jennifer's fourth marriage, having been engaged six times, and Ben's second - he was previously married to actress Jennifer Garner.
Of course, now that the news has been confirmed, many people have redirected their attention to J-Lo and Ben's status as singletons. Just last week Jennifer was rumoured to have a 'new man' when she was seen with a handsome stranger on her arm on the day of the London premiere of her new film Unstoppable, but he turned out to be her bodyguard. The poor woman can't move for romance rumours and she only filed for divorce two months ago.
With people searching for 'How many times has Jennifer Lopez been married or engaged', we take a look back at J-Lo's significant exes.
Husband number one - Ojani Noa (1997-1998)
J-Lo's first husband was Cuban waiter Ojani Noa. Then an aspiring actress, the pair met while he was working in a restaurant in Miami, and they wed in 1997. Things didn't work out between them and the couple divorced in January 1998, after 11 months of marriage.
While they ended on friendly terms, relations have soured since and she’s had to take legal action against him multiple times to stop him making defamatory claims about her. Jen took out a permanent injunction against him, forbidding him against 'criticising, denigrating, casting in a negative light or otherwise disparaging' her. In 2006, Ojani was sued by J-Lo over his plans to write a book on their brief marriage, and was issued a cease-and-desist letter over his pitch for a mock-documentary How I Married Jennifer Lopez: The J.Lo And Ojani Noa Story.
'I was husband number one and she told me I was the love of her life. When we lay in bed on our wedding night, she said we would be together for ever,' he said. 'I think she's someone who will be married seven or eight times. I can't see her ever settling down with one person.'
Husband number two - Cris Judd (2001-2003)
J-Lo's second marriage to Cris Judd was equally short-lived. She said 'I do' to the choreographer and backing dancer, who she worked with on her Love Don't Cost A Thing music video in 2001. Nine months later, in July 2002, the couple filed for divorce, which was finalised the following year.
Cris hinted that the pressures of fame took its toll on their relationship. 'Unfortunately, it just didn't work out. It's very tough. Your privacy is breached. You're no longer a normal person,' he said.
J-Lo added, 'Coming out of a torrid relationship, I meet this sweet person who's so refreshing. But marriage is not just about love. I loved Cris, still love him, he's one of the best people. This wasn't an easy thing to walk away from, but we didn't have what it takes to make a marriage work.'
Husband number three - Marc Anthony (2004-2014)
Jennifer's longest marriage to date is to singer Marc Anthony, with whom she shares 16-year-old twins Emme and Max. The couple first met in 1998, when he was performing in The Capeman Broadway musical, and became pals. Friendship turned to romance and they got back together in 2004, shortly after her broken first engagement to Ben. Three years after they welcomed their kids, Jen and Marc decided to divorce.
'While I was married to Marc, he really helped me with my confidence, and he saw where I suffered,' she said of her third husband.
'When my marriage ended, it was not easy to find forgiveness. It wasn't the dream that I had hoped for, and it would have been easier to fan the flames of resentment, disappointment and anger,' she said. 'But Marc is the father of my children, and that's never going away. So I have to work to make things right. And that is, by far, the hardest work I do. I hung in there for seven years. I knew very quickly that it wasn't the right thing.'
Marc - who has since remarried twice and is now with Paraguayan model Nadia Ferreira - said, 'We've always been [in a good place] from day one, you know. She's my goombah - that's my girl - for life. If you want to get along with a woman, just get divorced.'
The pair remain on good terms and have worked together since their split.
Fiance number three and five and husband number four- Ben Affleck (2022-2024)
Before their split was made official, we had high hopes for J-Lo and Ben. After all, they had reunited after nearly 20 years apart and we loved it! First time around, they were the 'it' couple of 2000s after sparks flew between them on the Gigli set and they went public after her split from Cris. Their next film Jersey Girl was not a box-office hit, and despite Ben proposing in November 2002 with a beautiful pink diamond, they called off their wedding due to 'excessive media attention'.
Shortly after her split from fiancé Alex Rodriguez, Ben and J-Lo - who called him her 'first big heartbreak' - were back together and we were all for it. They got engaged in April 2022. 'Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient,' she said in 2022, after announcing their Vegas nuptials.
Their romance inspired her new album This Is Me... Now. 'When Ben came back into my life, again the same thing happened where I felt so inspired and so overtaken with emotion that it was just pouring out of me. When I feel good, I write music,' Jen said.
She also revealed, 'We're older now, we're smarter, we have more experience, we're at different places in our lives, we have kids now, and we have to be very conscious of those things_._ It's a beautiful outcome that this has happened in this way at this time in our lives where we can really appreciate and celebrate each other and respect each other.'
Fiance number five - Alex Rodriguez (2017-2021)
In theory, J-Lo and Alex Rodriguez, nicknamed A-Rod, should have worked. She's the darling of showbusiness while he's a superstar of the sports world so together, they were the ultimate power couple. They were also each other's biggest cheerleaders.
They started dating in 2017 and announced their engagement in March 2019, planning to get married during the summer of 2020. After pushing back their big day twice due to COVID-19, they called the whole thing off.
In a joint statement about their break-up, Jennifer and A-Rod said, 'We have realised we are better as friends and look forward to remaining so. We will continue to work together and support each other on our shared businesses and projects.'
The world has long found allure in J-Lo's love life. If anything, J.Lo’s love life is proof that a relationship ending doesn’t equate to failure. As a society, we put so much value on long-lasting marriages or partnerships, as if when they come to an end, the entire thing was somehow worth absolutely nothing. When it comes to women in particular, those that amass a number of relationships, be them marriages or not, are often the butt of jokes about not being able to ‘keep a man’ or general judgement about their dating disasters.
J.Lo is the perfect example of someone who knows how to walk away when something isn’t bringing her joy anymore without fear of that very judgement. Rather than staying in marriages that are clearly not working, she’s prioritises her and her children’s lives, always open to finding happiness with someone else. She doesn’t seem to dread the label of being a divorcee like so many women do, because it’s clear she understands: being divorced does not mean you failed.
To know yourself that well, and to have the strength to act on it every time, is admirable. So, instead of questioning J.Lo’s relationship history and presumably making judgements based off it, perhaps we should be celebrating how good she is at knowing when to call it quits - and always being open to new love and commitment.
Sometimes, someone is only meant to be in your life for a certain period of time, you grow, change and perhaps you don’t always grow together. Leaving, whether they leave you or the other way round, does not make one partner any less valuable, it simply makes you no longer compatible. The sooner we realise that, as J.Lo clearly does, the sooner there’ll be less pressure on all of us to stay in unhappy relationships or marriages out of the mere fear of being considered a ‘failure’.