In hindsight, many stars have warned Jennifer Lopez about her second act with Ben Affleck.
After the 55-year-old star filed for divorce from Affleck after two years of marriage on Tuesday, a conversation between Lopez and Jane Fonda has resurfaced.
In the Prime Video documentary, “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” Fonda told Lopez, “I want you to know this — I don’t really know why — but I feel invested in you and Ben and I really, really, really want this to work.”
Once upon a time, Fonda played Lopez’s disapproving future mother-in-law in the 2005 romantic comedy “Monster-in-Law,” but in real life, she had some reservations about the rekindled romance.
“But that’s what worries me,” Fonda said. “It feels too much like you’re trying to prove something instead of just living it. You know, every other photo you take is of the two of you kissing and hugging.”
Lopez poked fun at her longtime friend, reassuring the 86-year-old: “It’s just us living our lives.”
But the “On the Floor” singer still understood where Fonda was coming from.
“She’s very protective of me,” Lopez shared, “and she felt like, ‘You’re putting yourself out there to get beat up again.’”
So protective, that before filming her scenes as Sagittarius in “This Is Me…Now,” Fonda had a stern talk with Lopez about Affleck’s behavior, including paparazzi photos that showed the 52-year-old appearing sad alongside his wife at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
“I’m really scared,” the fitness guru began, “you know, with all this shit about the Grammys and he looked upset and I was like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’”
But Lopez quickly brushed off his concerns, adding: “Nothing. He told me, ‘It’s like I’ve become the symbol of the besieged man.'”
Meanwhile, Fonda also spoke with the JLo Beauty founder’s longtime manager, Benny Medina.
“I think everyone in the world supports this relationship and this love,” Jane told Medina. “And the way you present it is so sacred, so important that it needs to be handled in a way that doesn’t overly display it to the point where it creates criticism or resentment. My biggest concern is that critics or people will attack her in some way.”
But Fonda isn’t the only celebrity to speak out about Lopez’s whirlwind romance with Affleck.
“The View” co-host Joy Behar didn’t hold back in May when discussing Lopez’s recent appearance on the morning show. “It’s not that we want to gossip about people. We don’t, because we’re talking about a friend of the show,” she said.
But that didn’t stop the 81-year-old.
“When you shout your love from the rooftops, it gets complicated when things don’t go well. My advice is to keep your mouth shut,” Behar added.
“I don’t even say it [my second husband] “Steve, I love him in public,” she continued. “I don’t say it in private either, but still. Telling everyone how much you love each other and writing it on Instagram and Facebook, and then you get divorced and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, see!?’”
And once news of Lopez and Affleck’s divorce broke, Amy Robach and TJ Holmes recalled a conversation they had with their former “Good Morning America” co-anchor.
On Wednesday’s episode of their podcast “Amy & TJ,” they shared that they were on air alongside host George Stephanopoulos for Lopez and Affleck’s wedding day.
And it turns out he saw the split coming.
“You came in and you were like, ‘This is such a great story. 17 years in the making,'” Robach told Holmes, noting that they both thought Lopez and Affleck’s relationship was a “fairy tale” at the time.
“We were excited, really happy for both of them,” she continued. “George Stephanopoulos, he rolled his eyes and said, ‘I’ll give him six months,’ or something. I mean, that was probably the right way to look at it.”
Holmes, however, disagreed with Stephanopoulos’s opinion.
“We say that everyone loves love stories, but we have a hard time being happy for people who are in love,” he explained. “It turns us off to see someone else so happy.”
“And then you get so invested and you almost rejoice in someone else’s passing and that pain,” Holmes told listeners. “Someone who said, ‘I’ll give it six months,’ could be [saying now]”I told you so.” You can sit back and say, “Ha ha.” I hate that mindset.
As fans may recall, this wasn’t the first time Lopez and Affleck tried to make a relationship work. The couple began dating in 2002 only to announce their split in 2004. Both stars went on to marry and have children with other people, but eventually rekindled their romance in 2021.
Affleck popped the question with an 8.5-carat radiant-cut green diamond set in a platinum ring. The Air director even engraved a special message inside the sparkler.
“That one, he put ‘not going anywhere’ because that’s what he would sign off on his emails when we started talking again,” Lopez told Apple Music One’s Zane Lowe in 2022 of her second engagement. “Like, ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.’”
She later mentioned this proposal in her newsletter of the same year.
“It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was the most romantic thing I could have imagined… just a quiet Saturday night at home, two people promising to always be there for each other,” Lopez wrote at the time. “Green has always been my lucky color and now, for sure, it always will be.”
The Grammy winner filed for divorce from Affleck in Los Angeles County Superior Court on the anniversary of their second wedding.
The former couple tied the knot in July 2022 at the Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas before tying the knot a month later at Affleck’s estate in Riceboro, Georgia.
Affleck’s three children – Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12, whom he shares with ex-wife Jennifer Garner – and Lopez’s 16-year-old twins – Emme and Max with ex-husband Marc Anthony – have remained close.
The blended family has even attended limited family events together, including when Lopez spent time with Violet in the Hamptons earlier this summer.
