Ben Affleck is speaking publicly for the first time about his divorce from Jennifer Lopez, offering candid reflections on their breakup, her documentary, and the difference in how each approached fame and privacy. The actor's comments, published in a wide-ranging interview for GQ's April issue, arrive months after Lopez filed for divorce in August 2024, ending their two-year marriage.
Affleck, 52, said he agreed to appear in Lopez's documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, because he wanted to participate on his own terms. "Part of it was, 'Okay, if I'm going to participate in this, I want to try to do it in an honest way and in a way that's interesting.' Because I thought it was an interesting examination," he said.
The Oscar winner acknowledged that Lopez, 55, has managed public life with more finesse than he has. "There are a lot of people who I think have handled celebrity more adeptly and more adroitly than I have, Jennifer among them," Affleck said. "My temperament is to be a little bit more reserved and private than hers. As happens in relationships, you don't always have the same attitude towards these things."
Affleck said he found it compelling to reflect on how two people with different public personas can make a relationship work. "And so I thought, Oh, this is interesting because how do you reconcile that? Love and support this person. I believe in them. They're great. I want people to see that," he said. He added, "You don't marry a ship captain. And then say, 'Well, I don't like going out in the water.' You've got to own what you knew going into any relationship."
While the documentary showcased parts of their relationship, Affleck insisted that it should not be read as a window into the reasons behind their split. "And I think it's important to say that wasn't the cause of some major fracture. It's not like you can watch that documentary and go, 'Oh, now I understand the issues that these two had,'" he said.
Their split, he stressed, lacked any dramatic inflection point. "There's no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue," he said. "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 added, "There's a tendency to look at breakups and want to identify root causes or something. But honestly, like I said, the truth is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting."
Affleck said he was mindful of how he discussed his personal life in public. "I hope I was clear about, when you asked me about Jen and the documentary and I talked about that and my sort of personal life a little bit, which I don't mind doing as long as my actual feelings and intentions and beliefs are communicated," he said. "Which I hope I was clear that really this is somebody I have a lot of respect for."
He emphasized that their differences in public-private boundaries should not be seen as criticism. "I get wanting to divine or explore the kind of differences in perspective that we have in terms of how a person feels comfortable approaching the line between public and private life," Affleck said. "But I really hope that whatever you use doesn't suggest that I have any negativity or judgment or anything regarding that. I have nothing but respect."
Reflecting on the vulnerability that often comes with relationship endings, he said, "It sounds more like a couple's therapy session, which - you would tune out of someone else's couple's therapy after a while."
Lopez, in an October 2024 interview with Interview Magazine, said the breakup nearly devastated her but ultimately provided clarity. "That doesn't mean it didn't almost take me out for good. It almost did," she said. "But now, on the other side of it, I think to myself, 'F--k, that is exactly what I needed.'"
Despite the split, Lopez said she carries no regrets. "Not one second," she said of her romance with Affleck. "I'm not looking for anybody, because everything that I've done over the past 25, 30 years, being in these different challenging situations, what can I f--king do when it's just me flying on my own."
Affleck and Lopez rekindled their early-2000s romance in 2021, nearly two decades after ending their initial engagement. They married in 2022, first in Las Vegas and again in a formal ceremony in Georgia, before filing for divorce two years later.
