“But things that are private, I’d always felt are sacred and special because, in part, they’re private. So this was something of an adjustment for me,” Affleck said in the February 2024 documentary.
While Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are officially ending their marriage following months of speculation, the internet is having a field day dissecting signs that led to their divorce.
TMZ confirmed Lopez filed for divorce on Tuesday, a little more than two years after saying “I do” in a July 2022 Las Vegas wedding, and three years after rekindling their romance after splitting more than 20 years prior.
Fans are certain there were clear signs — mainly from Affleck — that he was unhappy in the marriage.
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His quotes from now-estranged wife Lopez’s documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, have resurfaced online, specifically when he discovered the singer was showing his personal love letters around to a group of musicians.
“I came to the house one day, and she had told me, ‘Musicians are coming, this great producer Rogét [Chahayed], blah blah blah,’ and then I went down there and my book that I had given her was down there,” the 52-year-old said in the Amazon Prime documentary that accompanied Lopez’s ninth studio album, This Is Me … Now.
“She was like, ‘I’ve been reading, this is the kind of inspiration, I’ve been showing them the book.’ I was like, ‘You’ve been showing all the musicians all those letters?’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, we call you Pen Affleck, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God.'”
He definitely seemed taken aback by the move.
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Affleck also admitted in the documentary that having Lopez share so much of their personal life was difficult — saying, “Things that are private, I’d always felt, are sacred and special, because, in part, they’re private. So this was something of an adjustment for me.”
This was also something Lopez was acutely aware of, admitting that in the documentary.
“I don’t think he’s very comfortable with me doing all of this,” she also said in the doc about making their story so public. “But he loves me, he knows I’m an artist and he’s going to support me in every way he can because he knows he can’t stop me from making the music I made and writing the words that I wrote. That’s going to happen and he doesn’t want to stop me.”
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He also explained that he’s always had a “very firm sense of boundaries” around the press, while Lopez is the opposite. He said that initially, he told her, “Listen, one of the things I don’t want is a relationship on social media” — before he “realized it’s not a very fair thing to ask.”
“Jen is really inspired by this experience which is how artists do their work. They get inspired, their personal life, it moves you. I know as a writer and director, I certainly do the same things. But things that are private, I’d always felt are sacred and special because, in part, they’re private. So this was something of an adjustment for me,” Affleck said in the documentary.
This was also a reason that led them to call off their relationship the first time back in January 2004. Prior to officially splitting, they postponed their nuptials just days before the wedding in September 2003, blaming “excessive media attention.”
The Greatest Love Story Never Told is streaming on Prime Video. See more signs of their split here.
