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Louise Thomas
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Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have filed for divorce after two years of marriage.
After months of speculation swirling around the estranged pair, the 55-year-old singer filed for divorce from Affleck, 52, on August 20, two years after the pair married in July 2022. TMZ first reported the news, noting Lopez filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court and listed April 26, 2024 as the official date of separation. The Selena actor reportedly self-represented herself, having filed for divorce without using a lawyer.
“She tried really hard to make things work, and is heartbroken,” a source told People. “The kids are a top priority, as they always have been.
The two first tied the knot in Las Vegas on July 16, 2022, however, August 20 marked the second anniversary of their traditional wedding ceremony in Georgia, the same day Lopez filed for divorce.
The Georgia wedding ceremony was held on the grounds of Affleck’s 87-acre compound on the outskirts of Savannah, with his best friend Matt Damon among the famous attendees. Podcaster and life coach Jay Shetty reportedly officiated the ceremony.
“Bennifer” - as they were known in the early 2000s - famously rekindled their romance in 2021 after more than 17 years since they first got engaged and later postponed their wedding in September 2003. After they broke up in January 2004, they remained friends as both went on to marry other people, Affleck with Jennifer Garner, and Lopez with salsa singer Marc Anthony.
Lopez was married to the singer from 2004 to 2014, and together they share twins, Max and Emme, 16. They first announced their split in 2011, and officially divorced in 2014. On their marriage, Lopez admitted to W in 2016 that she knew that the relationship wasn’t right for her early on.
“When my marriage ended, it was not easy to find forgiveness,” she recalled. “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. 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.”
Before marrying Anthony, she had already married and divorced twice, the first time with Ojani Noa from 1997 to 1998. Their marriage only lasted 11 months. After ending her relationship with Noa, Lopez would go on to famously date hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Coombs. Sparks flew between the pair when they met on the set of a 1999 music video, and they dated for two years but ultimately split in 2001.
That same year, the actor married Cris Judd, a dancer she met on set while filming her “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” music video. However, the couple’s marriage was short-lived and ended in June 2002, with the divorce finalized in 2003.
“I can’t give you the answer as to why her relationships don’t work. I think that it’s that it is work. It’s whether you want to work on it or not. Everyone has baggage and problems. It’s whether you want to deal with those problems,” he told Us Weekly at the time. “When you sign up to get married, you can’t just walk away.”
Before revisiting her early aughts romance with Affleck, Lopez was in an off-and-on-again relationship with her backup dancer Casper Smart after her split from Marc Anthony. They went their separate ways for good in 2016, and the “On The Floor” singer briefly dated Drake for a year before ending things in February 2017.
That same month, she subsequently moved on with former New York Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez, with whom she eventually got engaged after two years of dating. However, Lopez and Rodriguez postponed their wedding multiple times amid the Covid-19 pandemic and eventually called off their two-year engagement in 2021.
Lopez reunited with Affleck in May 2021, with the pair embarking on a getaway to Montana and Miami. In April 2022, they announced their engagement and married in July of that year.
