Jennifer Lopez waited to end her marriage to Ben Affleck for a very pointed reason.
“The timing of the divorce was a big f—k you to Ben,” a Hollywood insider tells Us Weekly exclusively following Lopez’s move to officially sever ties with Affleck, 52.
Us confirmed on Tuesday, August 20 that Lopez had filed for divorce from Affleck after months of questions surrounding the status of their union. Court documents filed in a Los Angeles court on Tuesday revealed that the former couple’s actual date of separation was April 26 — three months before their second wedding anniversary.
However, Lopez waited until the two-year anniversary of their actual wedding celebration to go forward with the filing. (Lopez and Affleck got married during a Las Vegas ceremony in July 2022 before tying the knot in front of family and friends in Georgia the following month on August 20.)
For months, reports have continued to surface about the former couple’s marriage being on the rocks. But Lopez’s divorce filing puts an official end to the discourse.
Us confirmed in May that Affleck had moved out of their shared Beverly Hills home together.
“They can’t get on the same page [and] have been discussing divorce as an option,” a source told Us in June. The following month, Us confirmed that Affleck had purchased a new $20 million mansion without his estranged wife.
Lopez and Affleck first got together in the early 2000s after meeting on the Gigli movie set. They were engaged by November 2002 but split early the following year without ever walking down the aisle.
The A-listers eventually reconnected in 2021 and got married the following year. Questions about the status of their relationship rose earlier this year when they hadn’t been spotted out together publicly in 47 days. Neither Lopez nor Affleck has addressed the dissolution of their relationship.
A separate source told Us in July that Affleck and Lopez were “living separate lives” as they decided the next steps in their marriage. There was a “sliver of hope” for reconciliation, a second insider shared at the time.
“They are going through so much individually and as a couple,” a third source told Us. “They may take some time to see if this complicated moment can resolve itself and they come back to each other [as] better people.”
That same insider added: “They don’t hate each other — they’re [just] going through difficult times.”
