Ben Affleck is finally opening up about his divorce with Jennifer Lopez, as well as his cameos in her documentary.
The two-time Academy award winner revealed in an interview with GQ published Tuesday why exactly he chose to take part in Lopez’s documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, which follows the making-of her musical film This is Me… Now: A Love Story.
“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,’” Affleck said. “Because I thought it was an interesting examination.”
A major point in the documentary, which came out in in February 2024, was the pair’s contrasting views on public and personal life, with Affleck acknowledging that “as happens in relationships, you don’t always have the same attitude towards these things.”
Affleck described himself as more “reserved and private” than Lopez, who he said has “handled celebrity more adeptly and more adroitly” than he has.
“And so I thought, Oh, this is interesting because how do you reconcile that?” he wondered. “Because… I love and support this person. I believe in them. They’re great. I want people to see that.”
The Good Will Hunting star made clear that he doesn’t hold any judgement about Lopez’s views on private life, having “nothing but respect” for the pop star.
“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,” he added.
Despite their differences, Affleck doesn’t believe that their opposing views are what caused the couple’s split only two months after the documentary’s release date.
“It’s not like you can watch that documentary and go, ‘Oh, now I understand the issues that these two had,’” he said.
Affleck and Lopez were originally engaged in the early 2000s but broke off their engagement in 2003. They rekindled their romance almost two decades later and got married in 2022, but then finalized their divorce in January 2024.
According to Affleck, he hasn’t yet shared the reasons behind the couple’s breakup because it’s “sort of embarrassing” and “vulnerable,” but also simply very “quotidian.”
“I guess there’s a tendency to look at breakups and want to identify root causes or something,” he said. “But honestly, like I said, the truth is much more quotidian than probably people would believe or would be interesting.”
“There’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue.”
