Jennifer Lopez wasn’t interested in discussing her marriage to Ben Affleck while promoting her new film Atlas.
When an audience member asked if the “rumors” about her marriage issues with Ben Affleck “are true” at a Wednesday, May 22, panel, the moderator quickly shut the question down. Before moving on, however, Lopez, 54, shared her disappointment that the topic was even being broached.
“You know better than that,” she said while smiling in the clip, which was posted via Instagram by the Spanish-language entertainment news show El Gordo y la Flaca. The video had a caption in Spanish that read, “This is how #Atlas responded to the Mexican press who wanted to know what his situation was with #Jlo during the press conference of his movie #BenAffleck .” (It’s unclear if the person asking the question was press or a panel attendee.)
Lopez has been doing the rounds for her Atlas press tour solo, attending both the Los Angeles and Mexico City premieres earlier this week without Affleck, 51, by her side. The actor, meanwhile, was seen out to dinner in Santa Monica the same night as Lopez’s Mexico City event.
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Their separate spottings come after Us Weekly reported that the pair are “having issues” in their marriage as Lopez ramps up her “work commitments” and prepares for her This Is Me … Live tour.
“Jen is very focused on work,” a source exclusively told Us earlier this month, noting that the couple are “on two completely different pages most of the time.” An additional insider added that Affleck moved out of the duo’s L.A. mansion “several weeks ago.”
Despite their ups and downs, the couple don’t have plans to separate just yet, according to a third source. Both Affleck and Lopez have also been photographed still donning their wedding rings recently, although Affleck was seen without his last week.
Lopez and Affleck’s relationship began in the early 2000s when they met on the set of their film Gigli. He proposed in November 2022, but they called off their engagement just days before walking down the aisle.
They reconnected nearly 20 years later and rekindled their romance in 2021. Affleck got down on one knee for a second time in April 2022, and they said “I do” in a Las Vegas ceremony in July of that year. One month later, they celebrated with family and friends during a bigger ceremony in Georgia.
After news of their marital issues made headlines, a source told Us that Affleck’s ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, is “encouraging” him to work through their problems. “She fully supports their relationship and wants nothing more than for him to be happy,” the insider told Us.
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Garner, 52, and Affleck welcomed three children together, Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12, before announcing their split in June 2015 and finalizing their divorce three years later. Lopez, meanwhile, married Marc Anthony in 2004. The twosome, who share twins Emme and Maximilian, 15, separated in 2011 and finalized their divorce in 2014. (She was also previously married to Ojani Noa for nearly a year in 1997.)
While neither Affleck nor Lopez have addressed the drama, Lopez did bring up her husband and their engagement while recalling a story about Barbra Streisand on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday.
Streisand, she told Kimmel, was “asking me to look at my engagement ring at the time — that Ben had given me — years ago.” Streisand had ogled that ring, saying, “So that’s a big diamond,” to which Lopez replied, “Yes, it is!”