Ben Affleck is finally talking about the Bennifer divorce.
In his new cover story for the April issue of GQ, the 52-year-old actor spoke about his 2024 split from Lopez, 55, and his decision to appear in her documentary “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” in which he seem unhappy about Lopez sharing so much about their relationship.
“Part of it was, “Okay, if I’m going to participate in this, I want to try to do it in an honest way and in a way that’s interesting,’” Affleck explained. “Because I thought it was an interesting examination.”
“There are a lot of people who I think have handled celebrity more adeptly and more adroitly than I have, Jennifer among them,” said “The Accountant 2” star, adding, “My temperament is to be a little bit more reserved and private than hers. As happens in relationships, you don’t always have the same attitude towards these things.”
Affleck continued, “And so I thought, Oh, this is interesting because how do you reconcile that? love and support this person. I believe in them. They’re great. I want people to see that. And I think the thing that I said in that documentary or the piece that they used was where I said, You don’t marry a ship captain and then say, ‘Well, I don’t like going out in the water.’ You’ve got to own what you knew going into any relationship”
“And I think it’s important to say that wasn’t the cause of some major fracture,” Affleck clarified. “It’s not like you can watch that documentary and go, ‘Oh, now I understand the issues that these two had.’”
Affleck and Lopez divorced after two years of marriage earlier this year. Lopez filed for divorce in Aug. 2024.
The second half of Affleck’s interview was done days after he made his initial comments about Lopez. In the follow-up chat, Affleck clarify that he has no bad feelings about the “Let’s Get Loud” singer.
“I hope I was clear about, when you asked me about Jen and the documentary and I talked about that and my sort of personal life a little bit, which I don’t mind doing as long as my actual feelings and intentions and beliefs are communicated, which I hope I was clear that really this is somebody I have a lot of respect for,” he shared.
“And I get wanting to divine or explore the kind of differences in perspective that we have in terms of how a person feels comfortable approaching the line between public and private life,” Affleck continued. “But I really hope that whatever you use doesn’t suggest that I have any negativity or judgment or anything regarding that. I have nothing but respect.”
The Oscar winner added, “I guess there’s a tendency to look at breakups and want to identify root causes or something. But honestly, like I said, the truth is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting.”
In regards to his split from Lopez, Affleck insisted, “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,” he said. “It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do. And as you get older, this is true for me, I assume it’s true for most people, there is no ‘So-and-so did this’ or ‘This was the big event.’ It’s really, it sounds more like a couple’s therapy session, which—you would tune out of someone else’s couple’s therapy after a while.”
“For one thing, you start going, ‘Okay, clearly this person has got these issues. Clearly they have these issues. And the reason I don’t want to share that is just sort of embarrassing,” Affleck admitted. “It feels vulnerable.”
Lopez, for her part, addressed divorcing Affleck for the first time in an Interview Magazine piece in October, and said she has no regrets about their romance.
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t almost take me out for good. It almost did,” she shared. “But now, on the other side of it, I think to myself, ‘F–k, that is exactly what I needed. Thank you, god. I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry that you had to do this to me so many times.’”
Lopez, who was married and divorce three times before Affleck, also told the magazine she’s “excited” about being single again.
“I’m not looking for anybody, because everything that I’ve done over the past 25, 30 years, being in these different challenging situations, what can I f–king do when it’s just me flying on my own,” she said.
