Before Ben Affleck Married Jennifer Lopez, He Said Divorcing Jennifer Garner Was His ‘Biggest Regret’
Ben Affleck recently married Jennifer Lopez two decades after their first engagement, but the actor previously said his “biggest regret” in life was his divorce from Jennifer Garner. Here’s what we know about Affleck and Lopez’s wedding, including whether Affleck told his ex-wife before it happened, and what he said about divorcing Garner.
Jennifer Lopez married Ben Affleck two decades after they first got engaged to each other
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s relationship has been making headlines since July 2021, when the couple confirmed that they had rekindled their romance nearly 20 years after ending their first engagement to each other.
One year after getting back together, the two stars got married in a small Las Vegas ceremony. Lopez shared details of the wedding on her website, OnTheJLo. The “Dance Again” singer posted several photos from the event and wrote, “We did it. Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient.”
Affleck reportedly told his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, about the wedding just hours before it took place. Garner is the mother of the Gone Girl star’s three children.
Before Ben Affleck married Jennifer Lopez, he said his divorce from Jennifer Garner was his ‘biggest regret’
Before Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck got married, the actor said his “biggest regret” was divorcing Jennifer Garner. He opened up about the divorce in a 2020 interview with The New York Times.
“The biggest regret of my life is this divorce,” he said. “Shame is really toxic. There is no positive byproduct of shame. It’s just stewing in a toxic, hideous feeling of low self-worth and self-loathing.”
The actor later said if he would still be drinking if he hadn’t divorced Jennifer Garner
Ben Affleck once said he regretted his divorce from Jennifer Garner. But after rekindling his romance with Jennifer Lopez, the actor changed his tune.
In a December 2021 interview for SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, he claimed he would still be drinking if he had stayed married to the 13 Going on 30 star.
“We probably would’ve ended up at each other’s throats. I probably still would’ve been drinking,” Affleck said. “Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped.”
He continued, “I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ And what I did was drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”
But ultimately, Affleck said he and Garner maintained their “respect” for each other throughout their “difficult” divorce.
“We did it amicably. We did our best,” he explained. “Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes, but fundamentally it was always underpinned with a respect.”
