Ben Affleck Breaks Silence on Jennifer Lopez Split: “No Scandal, No Soap Opera”

The much-ballyhooed reunion of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez two decades after they first fell in love was followed three years later by their shocking split. But in a new interview with GQ, the Accountant 2 star insists, “There’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue…. The truth is, when you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’ Well, there is no, ‘This is what happened.’ It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do.”

The Oscar winner, 52, admits it’s “just sort of embarrassing” to share the backstory of their romance. “It feels vulnerable,” he says.

Many people speculated that J.Lo’s love of the spotlight was an issue; and as Ben acknowledges, “My temperament is to be a little bit more reserved and private” than the Hustlers star, 55. But at the same time, he emphasized that this isn’t what led to their divorce, nor was her self-indulgent documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, which he reluctantly participated in. “I think it’s important to say that wasn’t the cause of some major fracture,” he says.

The couple, who first met when they costarred in Gigli, got engaged in 2002 but called things off the next year. They moved on to other spouses (he married Jennifer Garner, she wed Marc Anthony), but both later divorced.

Then, in 2021, almost two decades after their split, they rekindled their romance, tying the knot in 2022. But the second chapter of their love story didn’t have a happy ending: Less than two years later, Ben had moved out, and Jen filed for divorce months later.