The long, narrow and windy road love story of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck…
Take a look around: you’ll see low-waisted jeans, cargo pants, colorful eyeshadows. It’s like we’re in the year 2000. Moreover, not only fashion, but also love is in reverse. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, one of the hottest couples of the millennium, or ‘Bennifer’ as they are known to everyone, are also back. The couple, who broke up exactly 18 years ago, announced that they were engaged again last week. So, how did this love that “makes the internet crazy” begin, how did it develop?
The romance between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez began in 2002 while filming the movie ‘Gigli’. At that time, Lopez was the first female star to have both her album and movie number one with her second album ‘J.Lo’ and the romantic comedy ‘The Wedding Planner’, and she was married to her second husband, Cris Judd. Affleck, on the other hand, had just broken up with Gywenth Paltrow, was on the top of another mountain, with the Best Screenplay Oscar in his pocket for “Good Will Hunting” and his newfound male mainstay status.
In November 2002, they played together in the music video of “Jenny from the Block”, the famous song that made Lopez J.Lo. The clip describes the paparazzi pressure on the duo, and in perhaps the most iconic scene of their ‘Bennifer’ love affair, it showed Affleck kissing J.Lo’s butt on the deck of a yacht. Affleck would say years later that the video was his biggest regret about their relationship. But not yet! First, they would be engaged with a $2.5 million pink diamond, then they would give interviews in which they explained the marriage proposal down to the last detail. Things were still going well.
Until the summer of 2003. News of Affleck’s infidelity would break out, then ‘Gigli’ and their second movie ‘Jersey Girl’ would explode back-to-back at the box office, and Bennifer announced in September 2013, just days before her wedding day, that they had postponed the wedding, citing media pressure. . In January 2004, a statement would come from Lopez this time; she had ended the engagement, she wanted respect for her private life from the press. Of course, the press did not show this respect.
Those were the years when tabloid and paparazzi culture exploded. Bennifer was the first example of the media’s trend of naming famous couples, Lopez and Affleck were also a voluntary part of the game with their non-stop interviews and the red carpets where they appeared in full. Maybe they didn’t even realize how racist and sexist the media would be. Lopez was referred to as a ‘maid’, while ‘South Park’ mocked his Latin origin and insulted him as ‘he’s mean…’. “It was horrible,” Lopez would say of those days. “The criticisms ruined our relationship.”
Not long after the breakup, Lopez began dating Marc Anthony and Affleck began dating Jennifer Garner, and they both quickly married and had children, as we often see in stories like this.
Although Affleck won the Best Picture Oscar in 2013 for the movie ‘Argo’, which he directed, he became known mostly for his alcohol and gambling addiction and rehabilitation programs he went in and out of many times. He became a symbol of middle-aged white men who had exhausted all the opportunities given to him. On the other hand, it is alleged that Harvey Weinstein, to whom he owes his career, was allegedly silent about his rape, and in 2003, footage of him behaving inappropriately to Hilarie Burton was the subject of #MeToo. Affleck and Garner, seen as the force that brought him together, divorced in 2018.
The second act starts
Lopez also went into a career pause. She didn’t make much of a noise until she was a judge on ‘American Idol’ in 2011. They divorced the same year. The second spring of his career came in 2019 with the movie ‘Hustlers’. His performance as a veteran stripper was not nominated for an Oscar, which drew widespread criticism.
With her show with Shakira in the Super Bowl in 2020, Lopez was again at the top as the poster girl for a long career, looking like a 50-year-old peanut, and persevering. She broke up with her fiancee, baseball star Alex Rodriguez, in April 2021. In July, St. Ben Affleck was with him as he celebrated his birthday in St. J.Lo has announced the second season of Bennifer by posting a picture of the two kissing on her Instagram account. A few days later, on a yacht in Monaco, the famous scene from the ‘Jenny from the Block’ clip would repeat, and the internet would go ‘crazy’.
The internet went ‘crazy’ when that famous scene from the ‘Jenny from the Block’ clip was repeated. ‘Bennifer 2.0’ is for the millions who text their ex-girlfriends “How are you” in the middle of the pandemic, those who can’t stand and check their first love’s social media, those who always carry a “I wonder” somewhere, those who are tired of everything going wrong and look nostalgically to the last ‘normal’ time of life, 20 years ago. ‘ was a branch to cling to.
On April 9, he posted on his Instagram account, “I have a very important announcement!” said. Those who wanted to know what happened had to go to the website and sign up for the newsletter. The couple, who were once toys for the tabloid press, are aware of how valuable content their relationship is this time, and are determined not to give away even the smallest crumb for free.
Jennifer Lopez explains in the video that Affleck squatted while she was in the tub and proposed with a green diamond ring (as big as Affleck’s ego): “I was speechless, tears were flowing from my eyes. He said ‘Is that a yes’, I said ‘Of course yes’!”… At the end of the video, Lopez turned to Affleck, who was not seen on camera, and said, “I love you” and Affleck’s voice was heard: “I love you too.”
What an amazing comeback for a man who shamelessly blamed his ex-wife for his alcoholism a few months ago and said, “If we were married, I’d probably still be drinking”! It gives a feeling of comfort to think that you can clear the past, to believe that life is guilty, not us. Just like old songs, fashionable outfits and the 2000s…
Let’s see if Bennifer’s second season will see the finale. ‘Halftime’, a documentary about Lopez’s life, will open the Tribeca Film Festival and will be screened on Netflix. I’m not sure if there will be a ‘next’ from ‘Ex’ but at least until that day, the Bennifer drama will continue, I can guarantee that.
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