Months before Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from Ben Affleck, the Oscar winner spoke candidly about their opposing views in Lopez’s February documentary, This is Me… Now: A Love Story.
During their first go-round at romance in the early 2000s, Affleck explained in the film that he “had a very firm sense of boundaries” when it came to media attention — which Lopez, 55, did not agree with.
“Jen, I don’t think, objected to it in the way I did,” Affleck, 52, explained. “I very much did object to it.”
When they got back together nearly 20 years after calling off their 2004 engagement, the Good Will Hunting screenwriter recalled telling the singer: “‘Listen, one of the things I don’t want is a relationship on social media,'” Affleck shared.
While he did have a change of heart — “I sort of realized it’s not a fair thing to ask … it’s sort of like you’re gonna marry a boat captain and you go, ‘Well, I don’t like the water'” — Affleck and Lopez were still “trying to learn to compromise” on how much of their relationship they were willing to live out in the public eye, he said.
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck kiss as they attend Amazon’s “This is Me… Now: A Love Story” premiere at the Dolby theatre in Hollywood, California, February 13, 2024. In the wake of Lopez filing for divorce in August 2024, Affleck’s commentary in the documentary seems prescient.
Robyn BECK / AFP/Getty Images
In fact, Affleck even had a difficult time with being on-camera in Lopez’s documentary, which chronicled the making of her album, This is Me… Now — and everything that went along with it (including her marriage to Affleck).
“I don’t really love being in the making-of documentary about my personal life, which is why I’m relieved that, it seems like I might be in this but I’m not really,” he told the camera. “I was worrying for no reason. The movie wasn’t about me. It was about the ability to love yourself and that love story is a lot f***ing harder to find than Prince Charming.”
The estranged couple have come a long way since Affleck’s second proposal in 2022 — during which he popped the question to Lopez with an engagement ring with a significant engraving.
Affleck had the band of the ring engraved with the words, “Not. Going. Anywhere.,” — a nod to how he would sign his emails when we started talking again,” Lopez told Apple Music One’s Zane Lowe. “Like, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.'”
