Ben Affleck revealed that he and ex-fiancée Jennifer Lopez still check in with each other, 16 years after their split.
The Oscar winner, 47, talked about Lopez in an interview with Brooks Barnes for The New York Times that was published on Tuesday, February 18. The writer shared several quotes on Twitter on Friday, February 21, that didn’t make it into the final story.
Affleck told Barnes that the Hustlers actress “should have been nominated” for an Academy Award this year for her performance.
“She’s the real thing,” he added. “I keep in touch periodically with her and have a lot of respect for her. How awesome is it that she had her biggest hit movie at 50? That’s f—king baller.”
Lopez, 50, and Affleck met and started dating while filming their 2003 movie Gigli, got engaged and later called it off in early 2004, shortly before their wedding.
The “On the Floor” singer later talked about their very public relationship in a Vanity Fair interview in December 2017, admitting that it “self-destructed in front of the entire world.”
She rebounded with Marc Anthony, marrying him in June 2004. The couple went on to welcome twins Max and Emme, now 12, and split in 2012. She got engaged to Alex Rodriguez in March 2019.
The Justice League star, meanwhile, married Jennifer Garner in June 2005. They share three children — Violet, 14, Seraphina, 11, and Samuel,7 — and split in 2015 after almost 10 years of marriage. Their divorce was finalized in October 2018.
The Way Back actor also talked about his ex-wife with Barnes, telling him, “The first and main thing that I have to say to Jennifer Garner in public or in private is thank you. I want to be really clear about how much I respect her and how much I value the fact that she works with me in co-parenting.”
He revealed in the Times story that their split was his “biggest regret” and admitted that his struggles with sobriety contributed to their issues.
“I drank relatively normally for a long time,” the now-sober star said. “What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart. This was 2015, 2016. My drinking, of course, created more marital problems.”
The 13 Going On 30 actress supported him as he battled his demons, and he completed a third stay in rehab in October 2018 after checking in for treatment the previous August.
Affleck also got emotional while discussing the end of his marriage with Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America on Thursday, February 20.
“I never thought that I was gonna get divorced. I didn’t want to get divorced. I didn’t want to be a divorced person. I really didn’t want to be a split family with my children,” he said. “And it upset me because it meant I wasn’t who I thought I was. And that was so painful and so disappointing in myself.”
