You don’t have to be a Deuxmoix fan girl to have heard the rumours about Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s possible break up. To say speculation has been rife is an understatement. Headlines about the pair reportedly living apart have featured on every major news site.
However, when Jennifer was given the chance to clear things up at a press conference for her new Netflix movie Atlas in Mexico earlier this week, she instead opted to scold the reporter who dared cut to the chase and ask the question, “What is the truth about these Ben Affleck rumours, what is the truth of the situation?”
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“You know better than that,” was her peak mum response. While her co-star Simu Liu (formerly known as Ken #2 in Barbie) had Jlo’s back, I personally think it was wrong to shame the reporter who asked the question.
Don’t get it twisted. I’m aware of the different treatment men and women experience in the media and while I’d normally eye-roll at the misogyny of a female actor being interviewed about her relationship while trying to promote her work. I do think, in this case, it’s justifiable.
Let me explain.
First of all, I totally appreciate there is a time and a place for these types of personal questions and while a junket about your new film might not be it, it is one of the few times reporters have direct access to Jennifer.
The actor said she and her character can both feel “misunderstood.”
Obviously, these reporters are thinking about their own headlines, but it does also give Jennifer an opportunity to change the narrative on these negative stories.
Think of it as a kind of tit-for-tat relationship. One that celebrities and showbiz reporters have engaged in for years. Whether that’s staged paparazzi pictures, or planting stories from anonymous sources. They get their headline; you get your publicity.
In my opinion, there is no way that Jennifer has stayed in the industry for this long without dabbling in this mutual exchange, so to belittle the reporter in that way feels a bit snide to me.
Yes, a 1:1 interview would have been a better and more respectful setting. However, my main reason for defending the reporter in question, is that Jennifer has publicised and indeed monetised her relationship with her husband for her own celebrity gain and financial profit.
In February this year, I wrote how I wished she would stop oversharing her relationship online.
The second celebration was much more lavish than their intimate Las Vegas wedding.
When the couple got engaged (again) in 2022, Jennifer posted a video to her Instagram page to announce the news to her “inner circle”:
“I have a really exciting and special story to share. So, if you’re not part of my inner circle, you have to go to onthejlo.com to hear this one.”
Yeah, not her friends and family, but her fans who sign up to her subscription based website.
Their reconciliation inspired Jennifer to release her first album in ten years: This Is Me… Now. Which she fully capitalised on by releasing not only a musical film alongside, but also a documentary called The Greatest Love Story Never Told. Which went behind the scenes of her album-making process and personal life.
In the documentary, not only does Jennifer share her private love letters from Ben with a “Bunch of musicians” to inspire them, but Hollywood royalty, Jane Fonda, criticises her for being too public with her relationship.
“It feels too much like you’re trying to prove something instead of just living it”.
Even Ben himself, who appears in the documentary, said that he didn’t want a “Social media relationship”, but admitted the couple were trying to compromise as it was “Unfair” of him to ask that of her.
She's in her bicoastal era.
Not only that, but Jennifer herself acknowledged how uncomfortable it made Ben.
“I don’t think [Ben] is very comfortable with me doing all of this,” she said. “But he loves me, he knows I’m an artist, and he’s gonna support me in every way he can because he knows you can’t stop me from making the music I made… he doesn’t want to stop me. But that doesn’t mean he’s comfortable being the muse.”
Jennifer has sold her and Ben’s entire love story to us, Amazon Prime and whoever else signs up to her website. For her to be frustrated when asked about break up rumours, feels a little like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted.
You can’t encourage and allow everyone into your relationship when it benefits you and your career, but then berate them for being invested when it no longer does.
Take Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendez for example. The pair don’t appear on the red carpet together anymore as they don’t even want pictures of the two of them in the public eye.
That’s how much they value their privacy.
Yes, they are still supportive of one another’s ventures, but their boundaries are so clear I fear you’d get rugby tackled to the ground before even attempting to pry further into their relationship.
Summer's biggest makeup look just arrived in Mexico.
Eva even responded to a fan on Instagram who asked why her and Ryan don’t attend events together. “Like these photos I’ve been posting, I’m only comfortable posting because it’s already out there.” Adding, “By ‘not comfortable,’ I mean exposing our very private life that we value.”
I’m not saying it would be easy, but if Ben and Jennifer wanted privacy, they have enough to at least buy a taste of it.
Of course it's understandable that if Jennifer is going through a rocky patch in her relationship, she wouldn’t want to discuss that with the world, regardless of how open she has previously been.
And, I don’t agree with personal questions like that being asked when you’re promoting a completely different project, with your assumedly very uncomfortable co-worker. Especially as a woman.
But, the problem is, Jennifer has blurred the boundaries between her private life so much that people not only feel comfortable asking such questions, but they also feel entitled to the answer.
She literally used her engagement and wedding to promote subscriptions to her website. “First peek at my wedding looks at OnTheJLo.com” was the caption on one Instagram post. She released an album, film and documentary inspired by Ben Affleck. She named it ‘The Greatest Love Story Never Told’, for Christ’s sake.
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Was the question in that arena appropriate? No. But, has Jlo created an environment where people could assume it was? Yes.
Ultimately, for as much of their relationship that she’s shared, no one apart from Jennifer and Ben know what (if anything’s) going on, currently. But, I just hope that if this relationship is truly the one she’s always wanted and that she’s waited 20 years for, she remembers it was press intrusion that broke it down in the first place.
