Jennifer Lopez Labels Husband Ben Affleck ”The Reluctant Participant” in Her Documentary

"But I really feel like as an artist, you have to be vulnerable."

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez at the Golden Globes
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Jennifer Lopez has no reservations about sharing her love story with Ben Affleck. Whether that's in interviews or her musical autobiographical movie, This Is Me... Now, Lopez has been open about her long road to finding love. So it should come as no surprise that she has an upcoming documentary about her autobiographical movie, The Greatest Love Story Never Told.

But her husband, Ben Affleck, isn't quite so forward with his personal life. In fact, he initially wanted their relationship to be completely offline.

So, how does he feel about a documentary that will discuss every aspect of their rekindling, as well as their initial relationship which ended in 2004?

Lopez said it was "very scary" to share so much of herself with the audience, and "the other scary part was that I was bringing into it my husband, who was kind of the reluctant participant, silent participant and all."

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck at the premiere of "This Is Me...Now: A Love Story"

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck at the premiere of her new movie.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

This didn't stop her from continuing down this terrifying route and baring her soul for the camera.

"But I really feel like as an artist, you have to be vulnerable," Lopez explained, "You have to, even when you're playing a role, have to get down to the real parts of yourself to share what it's like to be human. And that is a scary thing to do."

Despite Affleck being "the reluctant participant" in the documentary, it turns out that he was the mastermind of the entire thing, and even arranged the film crew for it.

"It wasn't my idea to photograph every single moment of doing this," Lopez admitted, "To be honest, when we started making the film, it just kind of got more and more bizarre and my husband, who had a front seat to the whole thing really, was the one who was like, 'We should be capturing this,' and he brought on this amazing team and that's kind of how it happened."

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck in 2003

Even 20 years ago, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck couldn't keep their eyes off each other.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Part of the documentary discusses the couple's breakup in 2004, where they remained separated for almost twenty years. During that time, Affleck married Jennifer Garner and had one daughter, Violet. Lopez married Marc Anthony and had two children, Max and Emme.

Affleck asks his wife, in a captivating and raw moment in the documentary, if she's forgiven him for ending their engagement in 2004.

“I think I was angry at you for a long time,” she responds. “But that heartbreak set both of us on a course to figuring ourselves out to being better people. I think I’ve forgiven you all the way. I think I need to forgive myself [for] some things.”

Fleurine Tideman
Freelance Writer

Fleurine Tideman is a freelance writer who is always ready to discuss celebrities, entertainment, mental health, relationships and anything else her busy brain comes up with. She comes from the small, rainy land of the Netherlands, but she uses the flexibility of her work to travel around Europe and explore new places. She spent several years working in the travel industry, which taught her how to fit insane amounts in her hand luggage. She has a degree in Psychology and Anthropology, which she uses to psychoanalyse herself and others. She’s a regular contributor for Betches, and you can also find her work on Pop Sugar, Insider, Time Out or her own blog, Symptoms of Living. At Marie Claire, she’ll be covering celebrity news, usually written to the sounds of Taylor Swift.