Jennifer Lopez is getting over her recent breakup with fiancé Alex Rodriguez by turning to another of her high-profile former fiancés for comfort, Ben Affleck.
The Jersey Girl co-stars have apparently been hanging out in Los Angeles over the last week. On Friday, Affleck was spotted getting picked up and dropped off by a white Escalade SUV that reportedly belongs to the pop star and has been taking him to and from her nearby mansion. A source told Page Six that while they haven’t been spotted together, the actor has visited Lopez at least three time since she returned from filming in the Dominican Republic. “Security picks him up at a nearby location and drops him off after spending a few hours at her house,” they said.
But while the timing of these clandestine hangouts might seem suspicious given that both stars have pretty recently broken up with their significant others, sources insist that their relationship is strictly platonic, and has been since they broke up 17 years ago. “They have spent time together in L.A. over the past week,” an insider confirmed to People. “They have a lot of love for each other. They have always admired each other.” A second source added, “They are friends. They have always been friends and they have seen each other through the years.”
The couple known to the early aughts tabloids as “Bennifer” first met on the set of their film Gigli, getting engaged in November 2002, shortly after Lopez filed for divorce from her second husband, Cris Judd. Days before they were set to walk down the aisle in 2003, however, the couple postponed the event, blaming “excessive media attention,” and by January 2004 they had officially broken up.
The formerly betrothed pair may have called off their wedding, but they’ve apparently remained close ever since. In 2016, Lopez explained on The Jess Cagle Interview that the media played a big role in the end of their relationship. “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 said. “I think different time, different thing, who knows what could’ve happened, but there was a genuine love there.” Affleck has equally had nothing but kind words to say about his ex. For InStyle‘s May cover which compiled an oral history of Lopez’s career, the actor demanded to know, “Where are you keeping the fountain of youth? Why do you look the same as you did in 2003 and it kind of looks like I’m in my 40s…at best?” To which the singer replied, “I don’t have any [beauty] secrets,” aside from her own skincare line, of course, adding, “Ben is funny! He still looks pretty good too.”
— Royal Family Cold War: Will Harry and William Make Up?
— Lourdes Leon Is Ready to Express Herself
— All the Looks From the 2021 Oscars Red Carpet
— The Doomed, Would-Be Celebrity Paradise That Still Haunts Myrtle Beach
— How Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton Carry on Princess Diana’s Fashion Legacy
— The Making and Unmaking of Chet Hanks’s “White Boy Summer”
— The 16 Best Mascaras in 2021, According to Sam Visser, Ego Nwodim, and More
— From the Archive: Diana and the Press
— Sign up for the Royal Watch newsletter to receive all the chatter from Kensington Palace and beyond.