BENNIFER 2021
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a celebrity couple reunites in L.A., our patron saint lands a major tabloid cover, and Mary-Kate Olsen drinks beer.
Where were you when you heard that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were secretly hanging out again? Page Six exclusively reported the news late last week, with very specific transportation details. According to a source, Affleck, 48, has been covertly visiting Lopez, 51, at her $28 million Bel-Air compound via a chauffeured white Escalade that picks him up and drops him back off at the Hotel Bel-Air. Page Six got a photo of Affleck on one such excursion:
Simply incredible. Lopez, as you know, recently split from her (probably cheating) fiancé Alex Rodriguez. Affleck has been single since breaking up with his very photogenic girlfriend Ana de Armas in January. (Page Six just so happened to drop the Bennifer reunion report on de Armas’s birthday.) And now, almost 20 years after they first got together, Affleck and Lopez are sneaking around like teenagers.
Shortly after Page Six revealed J-Lo and Affleck’s Escalade scheme, TMZ insisted, via a source, that the stars are just friends and not hooking up. But People, one of Lopez’s go-to tabloids, painted a slightly more romantic picture of the situation. A source told the outlet: “They have a great time hanging out. It's been years since they caught up properly. They have lots to talk about.”
And also: “They plan on hanging out again.” Thank God.
So far, the friendly exes have not been photographed together, but they were both in attendance at Global Citizen’s “Vax Live” concert taping last weekend. Lopez reportedly performed Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” during the show, which, as everyone knows (I didn’t know) is a song associated with Affleck’s beloved Red Sox. Do you think this was her way of winking at Affleck or sticking it to Rodriguez? I’m going to go with a little of both.
I’ve seen some outlets refer to the Bennifer reunion as “Bennifer 2.0,” which I have to say is wrong. Affleck and Jennifer Garner were Bennifer 2.0. If you have a suggestion for how we should refer to Affleck and Lopez from now on, feel free to put it in the comments.
But speaking of Garner, she would like you to know that she is also spending time with her ex. His name is John Miller — do you remember him? He’s a 42-year-old CEO of a robotics/burger company who used to be married to a sexy violinist. Here’s the Us Weekly cover announcing Garner and Miller’s relationship in 2018:
And once again, Us Weekly has the exclusive on Garner’s normal love life. Three days after Page Six broke the Bennifer news, a source told the tabloid, “Jen and John are back on.” Oh hell yeah. I mean, wait — I don’t care.
The most amusing tidbit to come out of the Bennifer/Bennifer 2.0 news cycle has nothing to do with Garner or Lopez. It involves an Instagram model named Nivine Jay, who posted the following video on TikTok this week:
It’s me. Chilling! Let’s hope, for the sake of Lopez and everyone else, that Affleck is off Raya now.
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: MAJOR NEWS ALERT: Hilary Duff is on the cover of People this week. Affleck and J-Lo only made the top right-hand corner!
Finally, I’ll leave you with a photo of Mary-Kate Olsen enjoying a beer with a friend:
I hope you get to do the same this weekend, if that’s what you like to do.
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I think technically speaking the reunion should be called Bennifer 1.1? I don't think that's catchy enough though...
Okay so Ben's fly is open, right? And is MK Olsen wearing an AirPod?