Jennifer Lopez: Divorcing Ben Affleck was the best thing that ever happened to me

"But you get through it. Honestly, I have to say, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it changed me − it didn't change me, it helped me grow in a way that I needed to grow, become more self-aware. I'm a different person now than I was last year."

Lopez, who wrapped her Up All Night tour in August, also said she's in a "very good" place and is "able to enjoy things more" now.

Lopez and Affleck married in 2022 after rekindling their relationship the previous year. The two originally dated in the 2000s and became a tabloid fixture, famously earning the nickname "Bennifer." After getting engaged in 2002, they postponed the wedding in 2003 amid excessive media attention before later splitting.

After their breakup, Lopez was married to Marc Anthony from 2004 to 2014 and engaged to Alex Rodriguez from 2019 to 2021. Affleck, meanwhile, was married to Jennifer Garner from 2005 to 2018.

Lopez and Affleck finalized their divorce in January 2025.

Lopez stars as fictional movie star Ingrid Luna in "Kiss of the Spider Woman," an adaptation of the stage musical of the same name. Diego Luna and Tonatiuh also star. The "Let's Get Loud" singer has described the film as a dream project, as she's long wanted to star in a movie musical.

Artists Equity, the production company founded by Affleck and Matt Damon, financed "Kiss of the Spider Woman," and Lopez told CBS it would not have been made without her ex-husband.

"I'll always give him that credit," she said.

Affleck previously said in a March interview with GQ that there was "no scandal" behind his and Lopez's divorce.

"The truth is, when you talk to somebody, 'Hey, what happened?' Well, there is no: 'This is what happened.' It's just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do," he said. "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.' "

Lopez has been earning Academy Awards buzz ever since "Kiss of the Spider Woman" premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January. But she told "CBS Sunday Morning" that she isn't thinking about the possibility of an Oscar nod, quipping, "I learned my lesson last time."

In 2019, Lopez was widely predicted to receive an Academy Award nomination for her role in "Hustlers" but was unexpectedly snubbed. She later opened up about being hurt by the exclusion in the 2022 documentary "Halftime," saying that she "really started to think I was going to get nominated" and "got my hopes up."

"It's great to be in the conversation that you're doing work that people recognize and that they love," she told CBS. "That's enough. It's not that you can't want more, or that you don't want to stand up there and say thank you. Of course we all want that. But I realized that I don't need it in the way that maybe I thought when I was younger. Not that I wouldn't love it!"

Sure bitch.

Anything to keep her name out there…why’d you marry him in the first place? Please someone throw water on her; the thirst!

I'm surprised she hasn't gone public with another man yet.

Sure, Jen.

I think it was a mistake casting her in this. She just doesn't have the gravitas or star power. I've seen clips with her tinky little voice and it's like meh.

From what we saw in the gossips over a few months, it looked like Ben abandoned Jennifer. As much as Jennifer is Type A and probably a control freak, I bet Ben is harder to be married to.

Ben feels the same way, Jen.

"I bet Ben is harder to be married to."

Asshole alcoholics with a terminal case of Peter Pan syndrome usually are.

Just when I thought she couldn't look older and uglier.....she can.

I can't think of a more boring celebrity than this one.

[quote]But she told "CBS Sunday Morning" that she isn't thinking about the possibility of an Oscar nod, quipping, "I learned my lesson last time."

People thought she learned her lesson last time with Affleck. Look how that worked out. Maybe he needs a stay at home wife.

Hasn’t she remarried yet?

People with NPD love to rationalize their failures. And that’s all this is: rationalizing.

She is still obsessed with Ben and probably has a giant, white dildo named “Ben” to fill the black hole in her heart.

Pathetic, talentless, Clister B cunt.

‘In 2019, Lopez was widely predicted to receive an Academy Award nomination for her role in "Hustlers" but was unexpectedly snubbed.’

It wasn’t unexpected bestie…

She’s been saying this shit year after year. She’s said this about every relationship she’s been in just as much as she the same shit every year time she’s “in love”.

Ben might be a mess but he’s twice divorced. Jennifer has been married 4 times and about 7 engagements.

Every man is going to statistically fail with her.

So they got remarried to publicize the film?

I suspect she’ll come out any day now and announce she’s remarried.

It was such a great experience, she went back to do it again.

I think those two like each other but have very different visions of show biz.

It's also possible there is sexual attraction.

Which time?

Why would anyone talk about this to anyone other than a close friend?

R22 Do you need us to answer that?

lol R14

I do not. What a way to go through life.

She'll be talking about Ben when she's in a nursing home.

How Dickensian of her.

I'm betting on her getting the last word with a message chiseled into her mausoleum, R26.

[quote] I'm betting on her getting the last word with a message chiseled into her mausoleum, [R26].

Hopefully, her kids save the cash and flush her ashes down a Burger King toilet.

What a sad, desperate attempt to spin this in her favor, when there were widespread reports at the time how "shocked" and "devastated" she was.

She is also the dumbass that put their private letters, etc. out in that stupid documentary. She never learns, the relationship wasn't fodder for the public woodpile, and she sacrificed it for her "fame."

I don't feel sorry for her nor do I believe this statement of hers.

She's such a phony. She thinks we've forgotten that just a few years ago, exactly while her horrible marriage to Affleck was limping along, she was trying to monetize the myth of it by pretending it was a great romance with the "This is Me... Now" tour (which she had to cut short) and the documentary about :"the greatest love story never told."

I can't stand celebrities who try to brand their own lives in ways that do not match the reality of what we see of them. Her always treating her marriages like they are profitably marketable as great love stories when they all keep spectacularly failing has been ridiculously transparent. She ends up again and again with high-rpofile men with enormous substance abuse issues, and she always acts like she's triumphing when the marriages always fall apart.

... that ever happened to YOU?

Poor Ben. JLo still talking about him, Gwenyth gossiping about the tea-bagging, Violet blathering at the U.N.

He's going to need a whole truck full of emotional support cigarettes.

R33 You can save your sympathy. Ben has more than enough for himself.

R29 beyond what I was ready for 😆🤣

R26 you mean a year from now when's she's WORKING in a nursing home.

Sad and desperate.

Preach! ^^

It’s clear she’s not the smartest, most talented or most interesting figure in any field… yet, I kind of buy that in the Sunday Morning piece she has huge portraits of Barbra, Marilyn, Sophia, etc. because that’s what she sees herself as and feels she never got the opportunity to showcase her (limited) talents all at once with some excellent editing and music studio trickery to put it all across. Perhaps this vehicle is it? Certainly, it’s as big a big movie musical as any diva would ever desire to showcase their “talent”. I won’t judge until I see the full movie, but it seems she’s better than OK…

It's just publicity for that shitty movie that nobody wants to see

Umm, maybe you could have just not married him in the first place??

I've always defended JLO here for her sheer drive, hard work and dedication to attention. She took what minimal talent she has and that gorgeous physique and face and made a career out of them.

So, it was with great disappointment that I had a tepid reaction to her presence in the KOTSW trailers.

She's always been able, on film anyway, to be at least somewhat of a compelling presence.

It's pretty obvious from those trailers that her age and talent drawbacks are no longer protected from detection by her what was once her younger, more dynamic presence.

Yeah, I know. That's ageism and sexism, but there ain't no getting around it.

When was the last time you've heard a male actor talking about his divorce, his ex wife or breakup? I honestly can't think of one.

Yet there are certain women who just insinuate and badmouth their exes - fucking JLo and Angelina Jolie, just for starters.

It's disgusting - and yet they would be SO APPALLED if Ben talked about her.

Fuck them - meanwhile men are always supposed to take the high road. Thank God I'm gay.

R43 Um...Ben?? Like, after EVERY one of his breakups?

Ben Affleck was quoted as saying- becoming a SCRAWNY ASS BOTTOM was the best thing that ever happened to me.

R44 - Ms. Garner, you're due back on set for your latest Capital one credit card commercial.

And him, bitch.

Affleck has been spotted with Eric Cartman.

R6...Correct about the voice. No one will hear her singing these songs & react the way they did hearing Madonna sing Evita, which was pleasant surprise. It's always right to give credit when credit is due no matter the receiver is, and Madonna deserved that credit. Jennifer Lopez deserves no such credit. The tracks that have been released from this production only showcase the limits of her very thin voice rather than reintroduce her as a skilled vocalist who has strength & range.

[quote] It’s clear she’s not the smartest, most talented or most interesting figure in any field

Is this from JLo’s LinkedIn endorsements?

Sounds like sour grapes to me.

That cunt better not try and cover “Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me” or I will cut a bitch!

So Jennifer being with Diddy wasn't all that bad I take it.

^ BUMP

JLo is exhausting. She is like Elizabeth Gilbert who goes from relationship to relationship, country to country, claiming, "oh, NOW I have found the answer. And I am the woman I was always meant to be. And all of you ought to listen to me because I have achieved enlightenment." Rinse, wash, repeat. EG.

The whole theme of Jennifers cringey, "This is me... now: a Love Story" was that she had finally learned to love herself and only THEN was she FINALLY ready to enter into her forever great marriage with the man she had always wanted. And now it's, "Oh, but divorcing Ben was the greatest thing to ever happen to me." And soon it will be marriage #5, complete with pronouncements about how THIS is the amazing marriage that the earliest 4 were preparing her for. Etc. Etc.

Riding the coattails of a dead marriage to keep oneself relevant… 🥱

But she looks so happy!

What a boring woman.

You know she would remarry Ben if he asked her.

It's all so juvenile isn't it R55? This is shit kids say and do in high school before they mature .

Lots of very career savvy people have major emotional issues, it seems. Even outside the celebrity world.

I’m sure that the film will be a bomb 💣 and maybe she’ll shut up for a little while.

[quote]But she told "CBS Sunday Morning" that she isn't thinking about the possibility of an Oscar nod, quipping, "I learned my lesson last time."

Uh huh, she'll be campaigning harder than anyone this season.

Kiss of the Spider Woman indeed!

She'll probably be pouring herself into a gold dress for every red carpet between now and then to put the idea in people's minds.

I'd like to thank Ben for the excellent bored to death memes he spawned during their very brief marriage.