Jennifer Lopez files for divorce from Ben Affleck

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a relationship that spanned twenty years, two engagements, two weddings and headlines too quite a few to rely, Jennifer Lopez has filed for divorce from Ben Affleck.

The submitting Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court docket dropped at an obvious finish a celeb coupling — or no less than the second installment of it — that dazzled from the very heights of the popular culture firmament and emblazoned numerous tabloid covers. They turned recognized, even earlier than such power-couple portmanteaus had been ubiquitous, as “Bennifer.”

The submitting was first reported by the TMZ web site. TMZ stated Lopez listed the date of separation as April 26, 2024. It added that she didn’t point out any prenuptial settlement.

After assembly, falling in love and getting engaged within the early 2000s — and starring collectively in 2003’s notorious “Gigli” and 2004’s “Jersey Woman” — the couple parted methods, blaming partially the strain of the general public eye.

However to the delight of many and maybe the skepticism of others, they reunited twenty years later and married — twice — in 2022.

“Love is gorgeous. Love is form. And it seems love is affected person. Twenty years affected person,” wrote Lopez, saying their first, quickie Las Vegas marriage ceremony that July, and signing off as Jennifer Lynn Affleck.

“Stick round lengthy sufficient and perhaps you’ll discover the very best second of your life in a drive by way of in Las Vegas at 12:30 within the morning within the tunnel of affection drive by way of along with your children and the one you’ll spend without end with,” she wrote in her publication.

The couple had flown to Las Vegas, stood in line for his or her license with 4 different {couples} and had been wed simply after midnight at A Little White Wedding ceremony Chapel, the place Lopez stated a Bluetooth speaker performed their transient march down the aisle. She known as it the very best evening of the couple’s lives.

A month later, that they had a a lot grander marriage ceremony at Affleck’s home in Georgia, in entrance of family and friends.

Each of them had been beforehand married. Affleck, 52, married Jennifer Garner, with whom he shares three youngsters, in 2005. They divorced in 2018.

Lopez, 55, had been married thrice earlier than. She was briefly married to Ojani Noa from 1997-1998 and to Cris Judd from 2001-2003. She and singer Marc Anthony had been married for a decade, having wed in 2004, and share 14-year-old twins. She began relationship former baseball participant Alex Rodriguez in 2017, however the couple known as off their engagement in 2021.

All alongside, it had been Lopez who was extra vocal in describing her and Affleck’s journey. When requested earlier this yr whether or not she was tougher on herself as a result of her relationships had been so high-profile, Lopez agreed.

“Oh yeah. 100%. It’s made me doubt myself and actually really feel dangerous about myself at occasions. Made me really feel like I needed to stop at occasions. However on the finish of the day, I really feel such as you form of have to do that factor the place you discover ways to navigate it,” she informed The Related Press. “You’re taking the issues that may very well be constructive about that and use it, and the remaining you form of simply throw away as form of like haterations or, you realize, different issues like that and simply be like, ‘No matter. I do know who I’m, I do know what I wish to do.’ ”

Affleck himself expressed admiration for her self-possession, telling the AP final yr that he agreed with the commentary that Hollywood was not sure the right way to capitalize on her wide-ranging expertise.

“I feel she’s in her prime,” Affleck stated then. “She’s doing extraordinary work in massive measure as a result of she’s taking that step to take accountability for what she’s doing somewhat than say, ‘That is what I’m being supplied.’ ”

Lopez is starring within the upcoming “Unstoppable,” beneath Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Fairness banner.

In Could, she starred within the Netflix film “Atlas.” On the finish of the month, she immediately canceled her 2024 North American tour, saying she was “heartsick and devastated” to be letting followers down however the transfer was needed. “Jennifer is taking day off to be together with her youngsters, household and shut mates,” organizers stated in an announcement.

The tour was to be her first in 5 years, in assist of her first solo album in a decade, “This Is Me…. Now” and its companion movie. a fictionalized have a look at her lengthy love life, and a documentary.

“Once I was a woman they’d ask me what I’d be. A lady in love is what I grew up wantin’ to be,” Lopez sang on the title observe.

The album, she stated, was impressed by her rekindled relationship with Affleck. However the movie was extra “about your journey as an individual, it’s about one individual’s journey and what it takes to get from heartbreak again to like. Or a hopeless romantic’s journey of their seek for love.” Within the film, she performed a personality known as The Artist who, equally, had determined as a toddler what she needed to be when she grew up: “in love.”

However the street was rocky. In an early scene, The Artist is on the again of a motorbike, using throughout a seaside, with a hunky man, face shielded. Then the motorbike crashes.

“Not all love tales have a cheerful ending,” she says.

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Jocelyn Noveck reported from New York.

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This story corrects the ages of Affleck and Lopez.