Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck—one of Hollywood’s most famous former couples—made headlines again after Ben opened up to the New York Times about how he thinks their divorce is the “biggest regret” of his life.
Let’s do a deep dive into their relationship, why they divorced, and how Ben is dealing with the “hideous feeling of low self-worth and self-loathing.”
Summer 2000: Ben Affleck meets Jennifer Garner on the set of Pearl Harbor. The movie flopped with critics but it created the foundation for a modern Hollywood romance. At the time, Jennifer was married to fellow actor Scott Foley.
December 2001 to March 2002: Ben films the notoriously bad Gigli with Jennifer Lopez. The unlikely pair fall in love and begin dating.
Summer 2002: Ben and Jennifer Garner develop a relationship on the set of Daredevil but stay with their partners. Ben later discusses the courtship in a Playboy interview. “We met on Pearl Harbor, which people hate, but we fell in love on Daredevil,” he says. “By the way, she won most of the fights in the movie, which was a pretty good predictor of what would happen down the road—my wife, holding swords and beating the living shit out of me.”
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Fall 2002: Ben proposes to J.Lo with a 6.1-carat pink diamond from Harry Winston. J.Lo spilled on the proposal during an interview with Diane Sawyer, saying, “I had cried a lot over sadness over the years. And for the first time in my life, I cried incredible purging tears of happiness.”
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January 2003: Ben and Jennifer Garner appear on Dinner for Five, and it’s clear she’s head over heels in love with him. Ben is still engaged to Jennifer Lopez, which explains why he doesn’t really respond to Jennifer Garner’s flirtation.
