Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are finally married after almost 20 years of their initial separation, and they’re in full head-over-heels. Wow! Honeymooners mode.
The Bennifer dated for 18 months before separation in 2004. Now, they’re back together, making red carpet appearances, and living out their early aughts romance.
Here’s everything there is to know about their relationship, from their old breakup to their July wedding.
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Though the two went their separate ways in 2004, they have since resurrected one of Hollywood’s favorite romances, being spotted on multiple loved up outings and red carpet appearances together.
Ahead, we take a stroll down memory lane and track Ben and Jen’s relationship history, from how they met to the stunning pink diamond that Affleck proposed with in 2002 and beyond.
It’s easy to understand why they’d keep their hangouts on the down-low when remembering their high-profile romance.
The pair first connected in 2002 on the set of the ill-fated Gigli. The two played gangsters who fall in love while attempting to kidnap a neurodivergent man. The movie flopped at the box office and among critics, who claimed Affleck and Lopez didn’t have much chemistry.
It was a different story off-screen. Lopez filed for divorce from second husband Cris Judd in June 2002, and she went public with the Good Will Hunting star after.
The “Waiting for Tonight” singer had another rock on her finger by November. Affleck proposed with a 6-carat pink diamond that had smaller white diamonds on the sides.
The ring caught plenty of media attention as did J. Lo’s “Jenny From the Block” music video. Paparazzi caught Bennifer filming in various cities throughout the fall before the clip was finally released in November. It included plenty of scenes of the couple showing their affection for each other.
The duo even welcomed Dateline’s Pat O’Brien into their Vancouver rental home to discuss their relationship, but they wouldn’t say exactly when they fell in love. “You can’t pinpoint it,” Lopez said. “We became friends first. That is the honest to God truth.”
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However, they never made it to the altar, canceling just days before the ceremony due to “excessive media attention.”
They announced their official breakup in January 2004. Lopez would marry Marc Anthony in June 2004 while Affleck moved on with Jennifer Garner that year as well.
Though it didn’t work out, Affleck and Lopez have only been kind to each other in the press. “We just happened to be together at the birth of the tabloids, and it was like ‘Oh, my God.’ It was just a lot of pressure,” she told PeopleTV’s The Jess Cagle Interview in 2016.
She continued, “I think different time, different thing, who knows what could’ve happened, but there was a genuine love there.”
Affleck, meanwhile, praised her in InStyle in April 2021 as “the hardest-working person I’ve come across in this business. She has great talent, but she has also worked very hard for her success, and I’m so happy for her that she seems, at long last, to be getting the credit she deserves.”
Lopez revealed that the actor popped the question nearly two decades after their original split.
July 16-17, 2022: Surprise! Bennifer gets married in Vegas.
Jennifer spilled all kinds of details about their big night in her On The JLo newsletter.
“Last night we flew to Vegas, stood in line for a license with four other couples, all making the same journey to the wedding capital of the world,” she wrote. “Behind us, two men held hands and held each other. In front of us, a young couple who made the three-hour drive from Victorville on their daughter’s second birthday—all of us wanting the same thing— for the world to recognize us as partners and to declare our love to the world through the ancient and nearly universal symbol of marriage.”
The couple “barely made it to the little white wedding chapel by midnight,” and J.Lo noted that the place “graciously stayed open late a few minutes, let us take pictures in a pink Cadillac convertible, evidently once used by the king himself (but if we wanted Elvis himself to show, that cost extra and he was in bed).”
J.Lo hinted that her kids were there and that she wore “a dress from an old movie” (Ben wore a jacket from his closet). “We read our own vows in the little chapel and gave one another the rings we’ll wear for the rest of our lives,” she said.
Jennifer has been waiting a long time for this one. And she said the wedding was “one we dreamed of long ago and one made real (in the eyes of the state, Las Vegas, a pink convertible and one another) at very, very long last.”
She then talked about their future together. “When love is real, the only thing that matters in marriage is one another and the promise we make to love, care, understand, be patient, loving and good to one another,” J.Lo said. “We had that. And so much more. Best night of our lives.”
The biggest takeaway? Bennifer is really, really in love.
“Stick around long enough and maybe you’ll find the best moment of your life in a drive through in Las Vegas at twelve thirty in the morning in the tunnel of love drive-through, with your kids and the one you’ll spend forever with,” she wrote. “Love is a great thing, maybe the best of things—and worth waiting for.” Sigh..
July 21, 2022: The couple takes a post-wedding trip to Paris.
The newlyweds jetted off to Paris for a romantic getaway right after their Vegas vows. What could be better than French food, world-renowned art, and, oh yeah, the City of Love to celebrate the 20-year journey to this point?
While nothing is official yet (honeymoon? Mini-moon?), the vacation is definitely a fabulous one.
Jennifer and Ben ate at Le Matignon Restaurant upon their arrival, according to people. And apparently, they requested a table on the outside terrace and stayed for two hours before heading back to their hotel for a late-night drive.
