Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are back together after 19 years – and they aren’t the only ones. Why do some pairings work better the second time around?
I t is the latest revival from the carefree early 00s to brave the fire-scorched hellscape of the 21st century. The relationship between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, AKA Bennifer, has roared back with a vengeance, with Lopez announcing their re-engagement this month, almost 19 years after they called off their wedding.
When two extremely famous people fall in love, “the story takes on its own momentum”, she says
When we talk about a couple’s chemistry, we usually mean something about sex. It is more literal with Affleck and Lopez, who create a compound that is far more compelling than Affleck or Lopez as single atoms.
Here is a precis for those who weren’t alive or paying attention two , while filming the universally panned romcom Gigli. Their subsequent romance led to Bennifer being defined on Urban Dictionary as “an attractive couple that have money, fame and beauty yet are still universally hated” and a “combination of two things that separately suck but when put together can achieve a level of sucking not understood by physics”.
Neither of those titles took, but the relationships lasted well into the 10s
But that was just how the cool kids saw it. To the mainstream media, the pairing was blessed, recalls Marie O’Riordan, who was then the editor of the lifestyle magazine Elle. “‘Will they break up?’ ‘Oh, they’ve got engaged?’ ‘What are they wearing?’ ‘Where’s the wedding going to be?’ It all plays out in front of you.”
Perhaps in response to the pitiless scrutiny of their engagement – performed to an unblinking audience, like Cinderella in a carriage of glass – they went a bit bonkers. Affleck popped the question in late 2002 with an engagement ring that was reported to cost $2.5m; Lopez called it “the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen”. (She didn’t actually finalise her divorce from her previous husband until 2003, visitar el sitio aquà but it is not bigamy if you only get engaged.)
