Jennifer Lopez Mentions Husband Ben Affleck for the First Time Publicly Since Those Pesky Divorce Rumors Started Swirling

Jennifer Lopez spoke of her husband, Ben Affleck, for the first time publicly yesterday since rumors began swirling about the state of their relationship last week—egged on by his absence last night at her movie premiere for Atlas, which drops on Netflix this Friday.

Lopez was on Jimmy Kimmel Live! promoting the film and definitely didn’t address their relationship status—Are they getting divorced? Are they living apart?—but did speak of Affleck, specifically their first engagement story. (Yes, there have been two engagements, lest we forget.) The story came up in the context of Lopez describing her first-ever meeting with her idol Barbra Streisand 20 years ago, during which Streisand called attention to Lopez’s first engagement ring from Affleck, given to her in 2002. 

“She was asking to look at my engagement ring at the time that Ben had given me years ago,” Lopez told Kimmel, adding that when Streisand quipped “That’s a big diamond,” Lopez responded “Yes, it is.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Affleck came up again—kind of—after Kimmel asked Lopez if she’d be bringing her kids, twins Max and Emme, on tour with her this summer for her This Is Me…Live show, which kicks off next month in Orlando. After Lopez said her 16-year-olds find it “awkward” watching her “do sexy things on stage,” Kimmel responded “You don’t do sexy things at home?” To this, she replied “I do do sexy things at home sometimes, but they don’t know about that.”

Lopez and Affleck were photographed for the first time together in 47 days this past Thursday, May 16 and then again on Sunday, May 19 (but who’s counting?), and both were wearing their wedding rings. However—read into this what you will—Affleck was absent from the red carpet at the Atlas L.A. premiere last night, leaving Lopez to walk the carpet with co-stars Sterling K. Brown and Simu Liu. 

On Kimmel’s show, Lopez wore a simple silver band on her ring finger, and talk of the couple’s first engagement brings us back to the early aughts, when the two were better known as the portmanteau “Bennifer.” After meeting on the set of Gigli, Affleck proposed in 2002; a September 2003 wedding was planned, but was initially postponed and later canceled outright after the couple split in 2004. 

Speaking to Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe back in February, Lopez reflected on this time, telling Lowe that the postponement “cast doubt” over their relationship: “I knew in my heart that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life—I knew that,” she said. “But it didn’t feel like we were going to make it, and so it scared me.” Lopez said their age was a significant factor in their decision to break up, admitting that they weren’t “mature enough” at the time. (In September 2003, Affleck was 31, and Lopez 34.)

But then, nearly two decades later, the couple rekindled their romance in 2021; he proposed for the second time in April 2022, and they married twice that same year, in Las Vegas that July and in Georgia in front of their friends and family in August. As opposed to the first engagement ring—a pink diamond—the second engagement ring was a bright green diamond. According to Bustle, “While the price of the engagement ring can only be estimated, a similar looking ring sold at Sotheby’s in 2009 for $3.1 million.” 

Last night, Affleck opting to not walk the red carpet with his wife comes as the two “are taking a second to figure out what each of them is going through and wants,” a source speaking to Entertainment Tonight said. In addition to starring in the film, Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions co-produced the film in conjunction with Netflix, and she said “I’m very proud of this movie. I think, you know, a big action movie, being helmed by a huge streamer, a huge studio like this putting the three of us in it to be the leads? I’m proud to be producing it.”

Atlas marks “the latest in a number of action-driven projects for Lopez,” Entertainment Tonight reports, who seems to be optimistic of, if nothing else, her career: “I have a tour coming up in the summer, you know, a couple of movies coming out next year, so I’m excited—it’s just, like, a great time,” she said. “Who knew that I would be, like, [an] action hero? With The Mother and Atlas now?”

As she continued on the carpet, Lopez in addition to speaking about her life professionally, also addressed her life personally, again, kind of—she told reporters, while smiling, “One thing you can always trust in [is] family,” possibly alluding to her husband and the vows they took not yet two years ago.