Ben Affleck Felt Embarrassed by New Nickname After Jennifer Lopez Shared His Private Love Letters
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have a love story for the ages, but they’re reportedly headed for divorce. The couple initially got engaged in the early 2000s, but their romance was cut short when they broke off their engagement in 2004. They got back together in 2021 and married in 2022. Now, we’re looking back at when Affleck said he felt extremely embarrassed by the nickname he received after Lopez shared his private love letters.
Ben Affleck felt embarrassed by the nickname he received after Jennifer Lopez shared his love letters
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have an enviable love story, but it might all end soon. The couple reportedly no longer lives together, as Affleck rents a $100,000 monthly apartment near his ex, Jennifer Garner. Insiders claim that the couple lives completely separate lives, as they’re both engrossed in work and having communication issues.
Affleck said in the past that he doesn’t want his romantic life to be in the public eye, but Lopez loves the limelight. In Lopez’s film, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, Affleck looks shocked when he finds out that Lopez is sharing his private love letters addressed to her. The love letters resulted in a new nickname for him.
“You’ve been showing all the musicians all the letters?” Affleck recalls asking Lopez. “And they were like, ‘Yeah, we call you Pen Affleck.'” He then put his head in his hands. “I was like, Oh my God.”
Lopez saved all her written and email communication with Affleck through the years — even when he married Jennifer Garner. “This book is a book Ben gave me on our first Christmas back together,” she revealed in the film. “It is every letter and every email that we wrote to each other from 20 years ago and today.”
The ‘Jenny From the Block’ singer reportedly wants a more public romance than her husband
As seen in The Greatest Love Story Never Told, Ben Affleck didn’t quite agree with Jennifer Lopez’s revealing his private love letters to others. It seems this is a theme in their marriage. Several sources have claimed that Affleck doesn’t want a public romance, but Lopez loves staying in the limelight.
“Jen’s need to make their relationship so public and perfect often leaves Ben feeling overwhelmed and henpecked,” a source told In Touch Weekly. “He just needs to be by himself sometimes, out of her shadow.”
In the past, Affleck even said he “hates being famous.”
“Getting back together, I said, ‘One of the things I don’t want is a relationship on social media. Then I realized it’s not a fair thing to ask,” he said in the documentary. However, Affleck realized that to be with Lopez, he’d have to spend some time in public. “We’re just two people with different approaches trying to learn to compromise,” he added.
Jennifer Lopez ’embraced’ the public combining her name with Ben Affleck’s
While “Pen Affleck” is a funny name that makes fun of Ben Affleck’s letters to Jennifer Lopez, the celebrity couple has a well-established couple name. The public loves referring to Affleck and Lopez as “Bennifer.”
In 2023, Lopez addressed the nickname while speaking to Jimmy Kimmel. “You know what, I’ve learned to embrace it,” she said. “Years ago, it was kind of like, ‘Oh, Bennifer.’ Actually, it wasn’t a bad thing even years ago, but I think it became a thing where people made fun of it.”
Lopez prefers “Bennifer” to other nicknames she heard. “I think ‘Aff-Lo’ is good too … (or) it could be ‘Lo-Af,'” Kimmel suggested.
“I don’t like that,” Lopez said.
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