As Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s relationship appears to have hit the rocks, interest in their pairing couldn’t be higher. Getting back together after nearly 20 years apart was one thing, but getting back together, getting married and then swiftly breaking up again? Well, that’s pop culture crack.
Yet it’s not just the potential relationship breakdown that’s piquing interest, it’s specifically JLo’s breakdown. After multiple reports of trouble in paradise, the singer pulled the breaks on her already-flailing US tour this week, citing “heartsickness”, with Live Nation reps confirming that Lopez is “taking time off to be with her children, family and close friends.”
The response to JLo cancelling her tour has hardly been one of quiet concern and a withdrawal of fangs, but more a gleeful “Aha!” moment from the internet, which seems to be delighting in her downfall. “Ha! Look at her crumble!” they jeer. “We predicted this and now it’s happening! What geniuses we are!” “He can’t stand her lifestyle.” “He’s worn down.” “She’s too ambitious.” “She spends too much money.”
Now I’m not exactly one to have instant sympathy for millionaires, but there’s something about the JLo situation that just reeks of sexism, and I rather enjoy her unique brand of misguided romanticism, so I will come out fighting for her just this once.
Firstly, have you seen Affleck recently? The man is walking misery, and the internet loves it. When he exhales ennui via a cigarette and drinks endless Dunkin Donuts milkshakes, we’re on his side, he’s a relatable sad clown. When JLo cancels her tour and gets mocked by her co-stars on a press tour? She deserves it, or so the internet thinks.
In fact, Affleck has done far less than JLo to earn the strangely sympathetic public opinion he has now. Yes, JLo made a frankly unhinged film and documentary about her love affair with Affleck, but he was in it too. Plus, let’s not forget when he and Ana de Armas also made that awful film about how he liked to watch her have sex with other men in 2022. Fictional, of course, but my point stands. What has he done recently to earn this bizarre fondness? Air? The Tender Bar? Come on.
JLo was in Hustlers. She produced Hustlers. She did a whole pole dance to Fiona Apple in Hustlers. She led the romcoms that these netizens grew up watching. She wrote Jenny from the Block, however dubiously autobiographically. Has she not given us enough to warrant a little respect? At least as much as the weird shield we’re reserving for Affleck?
If you’ve watched the JLo film, This Is Me... Now, or the accompanying documentary, it’s very clear that JLo is on an entirely different planet to the rest of us. The woman is a diagnosed, grade A hopeless romantic. You know how the worst person to be around is someone so pathetically and completely in love that all they can do is talk about it, with the presumption everyone else wants to talk about it too? JLo is this, but with money.
The woman financed the film with $20 million of her own money. No one’s paying her to make this. She actually thinks it’s good. When a person is this painfully earnest you’ve got to give them a break, even if they’re unbearably wealthy and a little annoying. If you gave me a singing voice, links with Jane Fonda and $20 million every time I fell in love, I’d probably have made an insane music video memoir too.
The schadenfreude-based sexism is just a little too pronounced for my liking. Even when a video of Affleck surfaced showing him closing JLo’s car door a little too enthusiastically, people gleefully retweeted it, claiming “He is so sick of her.” Have you ever thought of how sick she might be of it all? Playing second fiddle to Matt Damon all the time? I’d be exhausted. I’d cancel a tour too.
Let’s leave JLo alone, because she and Affleck might have been unbearable, but it truly takes two to tango.
