Bennifer Divorce Watch has ended 🫡
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a noted triple-threat files for divorce, a noted zero-threat raves about cake, and Meryl Streep and Martin Short hold hands.
Jane Fonda and I are really disappointed. As we discussed Tuesday night (thanks to everyone who joined the thread!), Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck filed for divorce from Ben Affleck on the two-year anniversary of their Georgia wedding celebration. It is now my solemn duty to take J.Lo and Ben off Gossip Time’s official Divorce Watch and put Ben on Gossip Time’s newly instituted Raya Watch. Hating it of course.
TMZ got the filing first, which J.Lo did herself, without a lawyer. She listed the couple’s date of separation as April 26, and she did not indicate that they have a prenup. TMZ says: They don’t. In a separate filing on Thursday, J.Lo cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the divorce and asked the court to restore her maiden name.
So far, neither party has released a statement, but sources connected to J.Lo (Benny Medina using various voice disguisers) have been calling up People and Us Weekly about three times a day to frame her decision to file as a paean to female empowerment.
“She was done waiting and the date she did it speaks a ton,” a source told People right after she filed. “She’s very disappointed and sad, but Ben hasn’t given her any signs that he wants to continue their marriage. He hasn't shown any commitment and interest in making their marriage work. It's gotten to the point that she just needs to look out for herself.”
“The timing of the divorce was a big fuck you to Ben,” another source told Us Weekly, a bit more succinctly.
Affleck is pretty much letting this ride — his side hasn’t talked to the tabloids at all, though that could change if settlement talks drag on. TMZ reports that Ben and Jen did not reach a settlement before she filed, and since they apparently did not have a prenup, everything is up for grabs. (Did Shotgun Wedding make any money?) The thing is, J.Lo has a much higher net worth, and it doesn’t seem like Affleck is interested in taking her money. It’s almost like she’s going through the motions of the divorce to get him to talk to her.
And I’m sure she could talk, talk, talk: People has also reported, via sources, that J.Lo “helped Ben become a family man again.” Oh boy. Another source told Page Six that the couple’s marital issues started on the honeymoon, where Affleck chafed at the paparazzi attention.
“He was unhappy with paparazzi following them,” the source said. “She is an international superstar, and he acted like it came as a surprise that they would be followed around. They would barely speak to each other during what was supposed to be the happiest time of their life. He sold her on him being a changed man, and that lasted a very short time.”
Didn’t he know she had to sell those Reformation dresses???
Affleck is going to have to respond to the divorce filing sometime in the next 30 days, and I’m sure we’ll hear a lot more from J.Lo in the tabloids before then. For now, let’s end with one more instantly iconic People source quote:
“They were really going to give it a try, and they did. These are two people who are in love with love, and who wouldn't jump into that? And the world wanted it.”
This is the most Benny Medina statement I have ever read, but you know what, he’s not wrong. We did!
Remember these pap shots from the set of The Town in 2009? Everyone assumed Affleck and Blake Lively were having an affair, and perhaps they were. Either way, Lively is probably very grateful to her old pal for taking the heat off her this week.
Fans have continued to criticize Lively for her somewhat tone deaf approach to the It Ends With Us press tour, and unfortunately, she has given them a lot of material. The tabloids just surfaced this bit from a BBC Radio 2 interview today:
Apropos of nothing, Lively reveals to the host that she made her one-year-old son Olin a “boob cake” for his birthday. This gal sure went to the Ryan Reynolds school of comedy.
At this point, it seems like Lively is not going to address the backlash directly. Her co-star Brandon Sklenar attempted to defend her this week by accusing critics of woman-hating. Hm. Not sure that’s going to do it.
(I died at Hunter Harris’s description of Sklenar last week: “Imagine Garrett Hedlund if he asked if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.”)
If anyone buys Lively’s haircare line, let me know.
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: Do you think Hilary Duff has an opinion on Bennifer? As far as I can tell she’s never met Affleck, but she co-hosted TRL with J.Lo in 2007 (they both had albums out the same week in March).
J.Lo was married to Marc Anthony at the time, and Hilary was fresh off a breakup with Joel Madden. They’ve both seen so much (in the way of men and fashion bangles).
Finally, I will leave you with this video of Meryl Streep and her “friend” Martin Short holding hands while walking into the Only Murders In the Building premiere after-party:
Love IS real.
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For some reason I thought Martin Short was like 5'4" and then was confused about how tall Meryl Streep was. After doing research, Martin Short is actually 5'8" and Meryl Streep is 5'6". For context, Steve Martin is 6'0" which may have been contributing to my confusion.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
Love love love Martin Short and Meryl Streep together. Shared initials = perfect match