[Image: Instagram/jlo]
Ben Affleck is playing his cards close to the chest when it comes to his split from Jennifer Lopez.
The duo – who were the poster couple (Bennifer) for early-2000s tabloid mania – called it quits, then circled back nearly two decades later only to get divorced earlier this year. Apparently, the two-year marriage reboot didn’t come with a warranty.
In GQ’s April 2025 cover interview, Affleck, now 52, shut down any juicy breakup theories, saying, “There’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue” behind the split. In other words, don’t expect a made-for-TV movie out of this one, per PEOPLE.
“The truth is, when you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’ Well, there is no, ‘This is what happened,’ ” said the Accountant 2 star. “It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do.”
As he’s gotten older, Affleck said, he’s realised breakups aren’t about some dramatic “gotcha” moment.
“There is no ‘So-and-so did this’ or ‘This was the big event,’” he explained, adding that, if anything, “It sounds more like a couple’s therapy session, which—you would tune out of someone else’s couple’s therapy after a while.”
Which is fair. Who actually wants to sit through someone else’s relationship post-mortem?
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Affleck admitted there’s a level of personal discomfort in sharing too much.
“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. It feels vulnerable,” he said.
And yet, he did give fans a peek behind the curtain in the 2024 documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told. Why? Well, “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.’ Because I thought it was an interesting examination,” he said.
Despite the outcome, Affleck had nothing but admiration for J-lo, now 55, crediting her for handling fame like a seasoned pro.
“She has handled celebrity more adeptly and more adroitly than I have,” he admitted, explaining that his temprement lean more toward “reserved and private” territory.
He also shut down any speculation that the documentary was their relationship’s undoing. “It’s not like you can watch that documentary and go, ‘Oh, now I understand the issues that these two had,’” he clarified.
But he does get why people try to dissect celebrity breakups.
“There’s a tendency to look at breakups and want to identify root causes or something,” he said. “But honestly … the truth is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting.”
Translation: Sorry, but this isn’t the drama you were hoping for.
[Source: People]
