Celebrity
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez broke up in 2004 because of media attention. Here’s why he decided he should let her put their lives on social media now.
When Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck announced their breakup in 2004, they pointed to the constant media attention on them as the reason. Upon their reunion in 2021, Affleck and Lopez found themselves at the center of attention again. Affleck said he wanted to avoid that level of scrutiny, but he didn’t think it was fair of him to ask Lopez to keep their relationship quiet.
When Affleck and Lopez got back together in 2021, he told her he didn’t want to become a regular presence on her social media accounts.
“Getting back together, I said, ‘Listen, one of the things I don’t want is a relationship on social media,’” he said, per the Daily Mail.
Eventually, though, he began to think that it was unfair to ask this of Lopez. So much of her life was intentionally lived in the eyes of the public.
“Then I sort of realized it’s not a fair thing to ask,” he said. “It’s sort of like, you’re gonna marry a boat captain and you go, ‘Well, I don’t like the water.’ We’re just two people with different kinds of approaches trying to learn to compromise.”
For the most part, though, Lopez has kept Affleck off her social media accounts.
Affleck’s trepidation about having a public relationship is understandable given the reasoning for their first split. In 2003, Lopez and Affleck called off their wedding at the last minute. Several months later, they announced that their relationship was over.
“Due to the excessive media attention surrounding our wedding, we have decided to postpone the date,” they said in the joint statement, per The Independent. “When we found ourselves seriously contemplating hiring three separate ‘decoy brides’ at three different locations, we realized that something was awry.”
Years later, Affleck said that too much attention was at least half the reason for their split.
“I would say [media attention] was about 50 percent [of what destroyed our relationship],” Affleck said. “The idea that people hate you and they hate you together and that being together is poison and ugly and toxic and the thing none of us want to be part of. And ‘who the f*** would want to have them to dinner?’ And ‘what the f*** are they doing together?’”
He said he had never liked fame
Though Affleck is a successful actor, he said he never sought out fame. While he understands that it comes with his job, he said it primarily causes problems for him.
“I’ve never found any virtue in fame at all,” he told Entertainment Weekly, adding, “I’ve probably gotten out of a couple of [traffic] tickets. I’ve gotten reservations at restaurants. But the whole point was to be able to do this job. That was it. Otherwise, what is it worth?”
