Autumnal Bennifer was stretching into Winter Bennifer and everything seemed to be going smoothly. Then Ben appeared on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show in December and all hell broke loose. Ben’s quotes about addiction and his marriage to Jen Garner did not land well – he said, in various ways, that he felt trapped in his marriage to Garner, that if he was still with Garner, he would still be drinking, and he definitely left the impression that he blamed his *marriage* for his alcoholism. When Ben tried to clarify the comments, he said it was all “clickbait” (no, he was accurately quoted) and incidentally, he looked and sounded completely baked during that Jimmy Kimmel interview.
The point is that Ben is a chronic self-saboteur and whenever things are going too well for him, historically he begins to self-sabotage. So I was interested to see what the reaction would be from J.Lo. At first, sources claimed that J.Lo was mad about Ben’s mess, then Lopez directly denied those tabloid reports and said she was not mad at Ben at all. Over the holidays, they spent a lot of time together with their kids, and everything seems back on the Bennifer schedule:
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez celebrated the holidays surrounded by family. The actor, 49, spent time with his children — daughters Violet, 16, and Seraphina, 12, and son Samuel, 9, whom he shares with ex-wife Jennifer Garner — on Christmas Eve in Los Angeles, a source tells PEOPLE.
The following day, the Argo star celebrated Christmas with Lopez, her children and his mother. The singer shares twins Max and Emme, both 13, with ex-husband Marc Anthony.
“It was a pretty quiet holiday for them. They really enjoyed it after a busy fall,” the insider adds.
Affleck and Lopez rekindled their romance in April before going Instagram official in July for the singer’s birthday. A source previously told PEOPLE they “are in it for the long run.”
I assume this means Garner had the kids on Christmas Day and so Ben did “Christmas” with the kids on Christmas Eve, then spent Christmas Day with J.Lo, Emme and Max. Where is Marc Anthony in all of this? Was he there too, or was he spending time with some of his other kids? Anyway, at one point, I thought that we would perhaps get a Christmas proposal from Bennifer, but I do think that Ben’s Stern interview set back the schedule a bit. Maybe a Valentine’s Day proposal? Hm.
Here are photos of Ben and Jen on December 30 in Bel Air.
Photos courtesy of Instagram, Backgrid.
That Marry Me movie is coming out on actual Valentines Day…who knows what these two have planned with promo and just general thirst.
Why did he have to say those things on a public interview for God’s sake? That is why they have psychologists so you can vent out your feeling in the privacy of a professional setting. Poor Jennifer Garner she must have felt so bad when she heard him reveal private information to the entire world.
@ Lolo86If : I doubt Jennifer Garner pays much attention to what Ben Affleck says about her or anything really. IMO she’s seen too much of it already to react anymore. I think she just goes about her life and ignores it.
I predict the proposal will be the end of this year
Yes, but will they actually make it to the altar or crash and burn like last time? (Cue the strippers!) I don’t see that Ben Affleck has really conquered his personal demons (an addictive, self-destructive personality), so I don’t see this being all that successful. It will be interesting to see if he/they make it any father than her publicity tour for “Marry Me”.
My bet, the engagement in February and then another cheating scandal! No marriage for them.
I do not see Ben marrying again. Getting engaged, yes. But he will self sabotage and clearly still has substance abuse issues.
I watched Jennifer Gardners IG reel of her making Ina’s beef bourguignon and I have to say, she’s pretty relatable. I used to loathe her due to the Capital One commercials and that saccharin sweet act but I can appreciate her now. She and Ben were never going to work – he’s a broken person. I’m glad Bennifer 2.0 seems to be going well. But it seems like Ben’s the kind of guy who will always blow up anything good in his life.
I LOVE her cooking videos. They’re cute and relatable and you can tell she actually does know how to cook.
Her whole instagram is really cute and fun. I don’t use the app that much, but when I do I usually scroll back through her stuff.
I do think that his comments on Stern were blown a bit out of proportion. I don’t think he meant it the way it came out. I’m an alcoholic and I definitely understood what he was talking about and understood the context of him saying he felt trapped. Sometimes we say things and don’t consider that other people lack the context we have. I’m certainly guilty of it- I just don’t say it in an interview! It must suck to have it everywhere and be thinking ‘Arrgh! That isn’t what I MEANT!’
Anyhoo, long love Bennifer….
Yep, Alcoholic here too. And I also think his comments were blown out of proportion. The media loves to create a “scandal” whenever they can and Ben has always been an easy target. Does anyone remember the Nanny? Yeah, Jen herself stated her and Ben had been separated, but everyone still says he “Cheated with the Nanny.”
Uh, no he didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, maybe he did cheat in their marriage, but the Nanny wasn’t who he cheated with.
He’s an almost 50 year old man who’s been doing interviews for a very long time. He should know better.
Totally. You go on Stern and start mouthing off about your previous marriage, what do you expect.
Ok.
@Rhar
Absolutely!
Ben knows how to say No comment or can change the topic of conversation & has done it before!
Lester and Marietta, agreed with you both! Great points!
@LesterBangs I agree. Yes I think that he should have been more careful with his words, and Howard should have intercepted when he said it, but this interview was over an hour. Over an hour! And Howard was really digging in, to his dad, to failure, to his failures as a dad. He was talking about *both* of them being trapped because it wasn’t working, but they didn’t want to give up. Did he say the wrong thing? Yes. Is there a point in everyone choosing to reprint the willful misrepresentation rather than what he actually talked about? I’m mostly sad this means all the cool gossip from the interview got ignored.
This. Give it a rest why don’t ya? Are you going to preface every Bennifer post with this faulty rehash? It’s boring and petty.
I agree. listening to the whole interview he never said “my wife made me drink”
He said his marriage was failing, he felt trapped and turned to the bottle. How many of us feel trapped in our marriage from time to time? So many! Even if you are in a happy healthy relationship there can be moments where you feel bored or trapped but then you remember the better parts of it and you move on. For someone deeply unhappy and with substance abuse issues it’s easy to fall into old habits. I think he was just being honest with his feelings and wasn’t pointing fingers explicitly at Garner. As a public figure he probably shouldn’t have addressed it but from an emotional standpoint i can see where you can just spill your guts during a conversation especially with Howard Stern who knows how to probe answers.
His comment was definitely blown out of proportion especially when you listen to the whole context of the interview it never came out as him blaming garner or anyone else but himself for his alcoholism. But I agree that he should have known better being a veteran in this industry, this is what the media do.
About bennifer I’m honestly surprised they aren’t married already, but they aren’t even living together yet so we’ll see about an engagement
If we actually listen to the HS show, he did not blame Garner. He did blame his marriage. But it was a failed marriage. But plenty people have failed marriages. And it is his experience, as well as Garner’s. Remember Garner’s Vanity Fair cover she did in 2016 (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/02/jennifer-garner-talks-kids-career-ben-affleck)? Even Garner herself resorted to a year of wine, per her own words in that VF cover. So both of them were drinking. The only difference is that Ben was an alcoholic and he’s genetically disposed of in that way. So he was impacted more.
And we should know better about not to lift quotes out of one’s context. It’s primary school stuff.
As for Ben’s quote on he and his ex-wife might still be at each other’s throat. Consider the scenario here:
in 2015, in that People annuncement of their intended separation, their source stated that that would be the only time they comment on their marriage and they would remain private onward. Here is the People link: https://people.com/celebrity/ben-affleck-and-jennifer-garner-are-getting-divorced/
And yet in February 2016, Garner surprised Ben to go to Vanity Fair to do that cover. Shouldn’t people keep their promises? According to Ben, he was not happy about that piece.
Commenters on cb are little miss perfects. It can be incredibly judgey here. Note one person said if you don’t agree with the ‘old posters’ you won’t get along. Like, for real? Is this high school? Apparently.
It’s a good sign they’re not engaged within months, slow and steady!
I do wonder where the people that said they wouldn’t make it to the met gala first, then to the end of 2021, are? Long live Bennifer!
Stop giving him that out-he didn’t say it was his marriage, he said it WAS HIS KIDS. He drank because he felt TRAPPED by his KIDS. He needs to be apologizing and going to therapy to/with them, not just Jen.
What happened to the love ❤️ strolls with Ben and JLo . I have not seen but one stroll since he loose lips dissed about his ex wife. We hear all about them spending Christmas together but no loved up stroll. I remembered someone did a reading on them saying the romance would be over by December🤫🤭.
There’s literally a recent pic of them together above??
She has a great smile !
Exactly @Murphy. It was NOT overblown. He said he was trapped by his kids. Nice thing to do for their psyche. And also lied that was when he started drinking, when everybody who knows about him knows he went to rehab in 2001, 2017 and 2018 which was before and after his marriage so who does he blame for those episodes? He is blame shifting and rewriting history to portray himself as the victim like the typical narcissist. His Oscar campaign will fail because 1) he’s still using and 2) nobody sees him as a character in a film, you see a celebrity who likes to expose his private life as much as possible, like a Kardashian.
He admitted he started to heavily drink again in 2015 and 2016 and that was when his marriage to Garner unfold. Just because you didn’t see him drinking during those two years, that doesn’t mean it was a lie. You were not living with him. And for the record, alcoholicism isn’t one’s choice that one can choose turn it on and off like a tap water. It is a medical condition and often is genetically disposed of. At this point, we know Ben has that genetic traits, because his pateral grandparents, great aunt, father, brother all suffered with addictions in their lives. When people experience difficult in lives, we deal with them differently. Yes, perhaps Ben should have not resorted to drinking when he knows he had a history with alcoholicism, but we are all human beings with complexities. Even Garner herself went for drinking (a year of wine, her own euphemism), per her own words in that Vanity Fair cover she did in 2016. So perhaps we should all have understanding of the background before we cast the stones. Besides, as I was saying, alcoholicism is a medical condition that can’t get turn off easily like a tap water. Yes, he went to rehab in 2017 and 2018, but we don’t know what triggered him, but that should not discount the fact that he started to drink heavily in 2015 and 2016 when his marriage unfolded.
He already talked multiple times about going to rehab when he was younger in interviews and no one who actually took the time to listen to the interview and not out of context headlines and articles made to generate clicks can say he was blaming garner or his children but the situation he was in. He always said in all his interviews that he was the one responsible for his alcoholism.
And he’s not getting that Oscar nomination because the film was bad, he actually received praises from critics so people do see him as the character in the film.
Well he certainly made it sound like when he started drinking it was during his marriage and everyone knows that’s a self serving lie. I heard the whole interview and he couldn’t stay on topic of what he was asked, kept talking in circles and forgot what he was even talking about at one point. He is an addict trying to pretend he is sober and if he doesn’t get his shit together soon we will be hearing about another rehab stay or worse.
Lena, you don’t know him. How did you know he was not sober in that talk show? Are you there? I listened to that show too. He stayed on that topic, because Howard Stern kept returning to it. The only thing is perhaps he was too confessional, but that’s Howard Stern for you.
People blame his slurring of words as an indication that he was not sober, but it is a known fact that people’s speech ability suffers, perhaps permanently, with chronical alcoholism. We know he drank heavily and for a long time. That could well be the reason that he now suffers words slurring.
I just hope the condition is temporary. He spoke so well 10 years ago on the Ellen Show.
I find it interesting that Mr. Affleck’s mother spent Christmas day not with her grandchildren by Ben but with Ms. Lopez’s and Mr. Anthony’s children. Is there bad blood between Ben’s mother and Ms Garner?
Jen took the kids on a trip over the holidays. They left on Christmas day and returned on the 2nd I think. I don’t think there’s any bad blood with them. They’ve always been close.
i don’t believe that Ben’s mom spent Christmas with Ben, JL & her children. There were pics taken by DM before Christmas where Ben & i belive Voilet are saying goodbye to Ben’s mom. Ben’s driveway is open season for the paps!
Your insta says garner not Lopez?
Narhan
Marc Anthony has 5 other kids I believe and is always on tour. He hardly spends time with the kids he has with Jlo and when he does he has an nannie (Nannie’s?) to help. Also, a recent tik tok of him singing surfaced and he looks high as a kite. Marc also has had substance abuse issues for years. It was one of the reasons he and Jlo divorced along with his cheating and wanting to control her. I love Jlo but she has a BAD picker when it comes to men. Hopefully she finds her happily ever after.