Ben Affleck is full of praise for his ex-fiancée Jennifer Lopez. The Gone Girl actor reminisced on the pair’s highly publicised relationship that took place from 2002 to 2004 and had fans and the press dubbing them ‘Bennifer’.
Ben admitted that sadly a lot of the attention surrounding his ex-partner was negative, saying on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast: “People were so mean about her — sexist, racist. Ugly, vicious [things] were written about her in ways that if you wrote it now, you would literally be fired for saying those things you said.”
Praising the Love Don’t Cost a Thing singer, Ben, 48, added: “Now it’s like, she’s lionised and respected for the work she did, where she came from, what she accomplished — as well she should be!”
Ben and Jennifer began dating in the summer of 2002 after meeting on the set of their film Gigli. The pair also starred in Jersey Girl together, while the actor featured in his then-girlfriend’s official music video for Jenny from the Block.
The couple got engaged in November 2002 and were due to walk down the aisle in September the following year when they cancelled the wedding due to excessive media attention. They split in January 2004 when Ben called off the engagement.
Writing in her book True Love, the mother-of-two admitted: “It felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest. And when the realisation that I wasn’t going to have the fairytale family I wanted really set in, well, that was when I really started to fall apart.”
Jennifer went on to marry Marc Anthony, the father of her twins Emme and Max, but the couple split in 2014 after ten years.
The Hustlers actress is now engaged to Alex Rodriguez and the couple were due to tie the knot in Italy last year, although they have had to postpone their nuptials due to the pandemic.
Talking on the Today Show last May, the Let’s Get Loud hitmaker said: “You just have to kind of wait and see how this all plays out… “I’m a little heartbroken because we did have some great plans but I’m also like, you know what, God has a bigger plan, so we just have to wait and see.”