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The second time was not the charm. The singer, actress and businesswoman Jennifer Lopez, 54, and the actor Ben Affleck, 51, have broken up and announced their divorce after several months of speculation. The separation took place on April 26, but it was made official this Tuesday, August 20, in the courts of Los Angeles, according to the TMZ website. It was this morning when the singer and artist presented the divorce papers to the California court without the help of a lawyer. Today’s date coincides with the couple’s second wedding in Georgia, celebrated two years ago.

The announcement had been expected for months, and was almost a no-brainer, given the couple’s attitude and important details such as the fact that they have put their Beverly Hills mansion, which they bought just a year ago, up for sale, and that they both have or are looking for new homes. Their projects have also been affected, since she has cancelled her tour when it was barely a month away from starting. “Jennifer is going to take some time to be with her children, her family and her close friends,” said a statement from Live Nation, the company organizing the show.

The American tabloids – whose photographers pursue the couple tirelessly, even when they go out to buy a coffee or a hamburger without getting out of the car – knew that Affleck has spent weeks sleeping in another house, and not in the one he bought with Lopez just a year ago, with 4,300 square meters, 12 bedrooms and 24 bathrooms, for more than 60 million dollars, in one of the most exclusive areas of California. In fact, since the beginning of June that mansion has been on the market for 68 million dollars. The actor has already bought a new house. At the end of June, Lopez went on vacation to Italy without Affleck; he took the opportunity to get his things out of the house and take them to his new home. In mid-July, he did not appear at the celebrations for the artist’s birthday in the Hamptons (New York); Emme and Max, his children with Marc Anthony, and several friends were there, but not the actor. In fact, it was that weekend that she closed the transaction from Los Angeles for a 20 million mansion, something that, according to some media, particularly hurt her.

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It was in mid-May when the American press began to do the math: it had been almost 50 days since they had been seen together in public. However, a few days later they played at denying it, allowing themselves to be photographed together at a family event (at the exit of a school performance by one of Affleck’s daughters with the actress Jennifer Garner), although they did little to silence the rumours, because he remained inside the car and she outside, talking to him from the other window with her daughter Emme. In recent weeks, they have been seen in some fleeting images, chatting or walking, even giving each other a kiss on the cheek, but much more seriously than on previous occasions. When she returned from vacation, in fact, she went to visit him, but at his office.

Time and space have shown that the relationship was not in its best moment, as was confirmed weeks later. These months Lopez has spent a lot of time on the East Coast filming her new project, a remake of Kiss of the Spider Woman, and promoting her new movie, Atlas; he has not accompanied her at any time, stating that he was filming a project (the second part of The Accountant, which he starred in in 2016) in the West of the country. However, he did not go with her to the Met Gala in May, one of the most important events of the year and where, in addition, the artist was one of the four hosts of the night.

Jennifer Lopez poses solo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art gala in New York on May 6, 2024, where she co-hosted alongside Zendaya, Bad Bunny and Chris Hemsworth. Andrew Kelly (Reuters)

Lopez has been house hunting for a few weeks, but without Affleck, accompanied by her production company; he has already temporarily settled in the Brentwood neighborhood until he finds a new house facing the ocean, in the Pacific Palisades area. According to sources close to the couple, between them “everything is a fight,” as they have told the portal. Page Six. The launch of a titanic and strange project about their relationship last February, which cost the artist more than 20 million dollars, in which he revealed that in its early stages he preferred to keep their romance out of the spotlight and out of the networks, also seems to have distanced them. In the documentary, it was also revealed that for years Affleck sent letters to Lopez, also during his marriage to Garner, something that not even the latter knew.

Although this is the first divorce for the couple, it is their second breakup. Twenty years ago, shortly after they met, they had a very public and persecuted romance. It was after the filming of Gigi, between 2002 and 2004. They announced their wedding, but the pressure from the media became unbearable and just four days before the wedding they decided to end their relationship. So they went their separate ways. Lopez married Marc Anthony, also a singer, with whom she had twins Max and Emme (aged 16), and from whom she separated in 2011 and divorced in 2014; she then had a long relationship, including an engagement, with the athlete Alex Rodriguez. Affleck married actress Jennifer Garner in 2005, they had three children, Violet, 18, Seraphina (now Fin, 15) and Samuel, 12, and separated in 2018. The Daredevil actor’s problems with alcohol made living together very difficult. He has said that the divorce is the biggest regret of his life.

When Affleck and Lopez reconnected in 2021, many hoped, almost in disbelief, that their romance was real and would become part of Hollywood chronicles. And little by little it was revealed that, indeed, it was. In June 2021, a kiss in an exclusive restaurant in Malibu (California) confirmed that Bennifer – as the couple was called in their first stage together – was back. They began to be seen together more and more frequently and posing on red carpets. In April 2022, they announced their engagement and, surprisingly, they got married in Las Vegas in July of that same year. She had kept for years the dress she wore that day, on which her children and Affleck’s accompanied them aboard a pink Cadillac convertible.

The couple’s big wedding took place a month later in Savannah, Georgia, on a large estate owned by the actor and director. Their children were again with them for the second wedding, but this time they were accompanied by many more friends, such as Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana Barroso, and the presenter Jimmy Kimmel. The bride wore three dresses, all designed by Ralph Lauren; the couple then went on their honeymoon to Paris, also with their children. They also celebrated the actress’s 53rd birthday there: “I am the age I am, but I feel incredible and I am happier than ever,” she said in an interview at the time.