Single J.Lo
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: a celebrity journeys to find herself, a sportsman declares himself single, and Hilary Duff comments on the power of women.
Everything is stupid and scary! Perhaps it will comfort you to know that Jennifer Lopez is taking a break from dating in the wake of her divorce from Ben Affleck.
“Jen wants to take some time to be single and find herself again,” a source told Us Weekly exclusively the day after the election. “That’s the journey she’s on.”
Doesn’t that sound nice? Unfortunately, it is probably a lie. The fact that Benny Medina decided to leak this healing journey to the tabloids suggests that she is actually auditioning new boyfriends as we speak. Recall that after J.Lo called off her engagement to Alex Rodriguez in 2021, she was spotted with Affleck a month later. (A-Rod, in turn, posted a sad video of framed photos of J.Lo soundtracked to Coldplay’s “Fix You.”)
Us Weekly’s source notes that Lopez and Affleck are still “very involved when it comes to the kids,” and that they may even spend time together as a family over the holidays. But J.Lo does seem pretty done with Affleck romantically.
After campaigning hard for Kamala Harris, Lopez flew to London this week to promote Unstoppable, which Affleck produced with Matt Damon under their Artists Equity banner. Affleck made a point to praise her performance as “spectacular” in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, but when asked about it on the red carpet this week, Lopez declined to say anything about Affleck specifically.
She also wore these Dior boots at a photocall in London:
We’re all doing our best.
Also not dating right now: Tom Brady. A source told Page Six that the former quarterback “is super focused on his kids and work” amid the news that his ex-wife Gisele Bündchen is expecting a baby with her jiu-jitsu trainer/boyfriend Joachim Valente.
But it’s not like Brady has been a monk since he and Bündchen finalized their divorce two years ago. He was rumored to be pursuing both Reese Witherspoon and Kim Kardashian last year, and he also spent several months publicly dating Irina Shayk. This past summer, People reported that he was seeing the 27-year-old Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Brooks Nader.
“They’ve been hooking up this summer, having rendezvous in different cities,” a source told the tabloid. “It’s casual.”
Nader has since appeared on Dancing With the Stars.
Personally, I think Lopez and Brady could both look to Witherspoon as an example for post-divorce dating: She stayed super quiet for about 18 months after her split from Jim Toth and then popped up this summer with a non-famous, age-appropriate German financier boyfriend (Searchlight Capital cofounder Oliver Haarmann).
I kind of doubt that is the direction they will take, but there is no harm in suggestion.
We already discussed Ariana Grande (and her affair-turned-celebrated-relationship with Ethan Slater) in our election distraction special earlier this week, but some crucial news happened after publication that I must share now.
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It turns out that Grande does a perfect Hermione (as played by Emma Watson) impression. That’s all!
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: I present to you Hilary Duff’s message on the election results.
Finally, I will leave you with an unexpected sign of peace — exes and coparents Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis were photographed together for the first time in months yesterday:
They finalized their truly bitter and insane custody dispute a little over a year ago now. And it looks like they’re…friends again? That’s something.
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bowen knowing she meant vocal fry but not correcting her lmao
I just know Reese was irate when her ex-husband lost so much money on Quibi. Once that app failed, I knew their marriage was gonna be next.