Ben Affleck makes rare comment about Jennifer Lopez two years after break-up
Ben Affleck has opened up about his “admiration” for ex-wife Jennifer Lopez, two years after they split for the second time.
In an interview with Variety, Affleck – who was a producer on Lopez’s 2025 box-office bomb, Kiss of the Spider Woman – discussed why his ex-wife, 57, is often “overlooked” by Hollywood and its award bodies.
Affleck and Lopez married in 2022 and split two years later. Getty
“I’m biased. I have an enormous amount of respect and admiration for what she can do,” Affleck, 54, said.
“What I’ve found with awards is that sometimes the degree of commercial success for things doesn’t always correlate to my taste. It’s a part of this weird, subjective business that people bring a lot of their own stuff to.”
Despite plenty of buzz for her 2019 film Hustlers, Lopez has never received an Oscar nomination.
Affleck said he doesn’t always agree with the performances that win awards.
“But guess what? I don’t think you die and go to heaven, and God says, ‘This was the actual best picture in 1986.’ At the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of people voting on movie prizes,” he said.
Elsewhere in the interview, Affleck reflected on how the film industry has changed, naming both his ex-wives as examples.
“Now you’ve got your social media identity. You work to develop that,” he explained.
“I’ve seen both Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Garner do amazing jobs cultivating and accruing value in those spaces. Don’t think that’s not real work. I couldn’t do it. What am I going to do, unbox something?”
Affleck and Lopez met on the set of Gigli and were first engaged in 2002, but called off their wedding the following year.
‘Bennifer’ first married in Las Vegas before a lavish ceremony in Georgia. On The JLo
After their break-up, Lopez married singer Marc Anthony, with whom she shares 18-year-old twins Emme and Max, and later dated baseball star Alex Rodriguez.
Meanwhile, Affleck was married to Garner from 2005 to 2018. They have three children, Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 14.
“Bennifer” reunited in 2021 and married in July 2022. After months of separation rumours, Lopez officially filed for divorce in August 2024.
