Bennifer Timeline: Where to Stream ‘Gigli’, “Jenny on the Block”, and More

Before we jump into a Bennifer timeline, it’s worth understanding the heat scores that both Lopez and Affleck were riding heading into this relationship.

Ben Affleck was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and started off his acting career in local productions. He appeared in a kid’s show called The Voyage of the Mimi and had a cameo in the Julia Roberts flick Mystic Pizza. He followed that up as a young adult with turns in everything from Chasing Amy to School Ties. Armageddon put him on the map as a movie star, and Good Will Hunting made him and lifelong BFF Matt Damon Oscar winners for Best Original Screenplay. He was in a high profile romance with none other than Gwyneth Paltrow. Come 2002 Affleck was a heartthrob, box office titan, and actor trying to figure out if he could follow in the footsteps of the likes of Harrison Ford.

Jennifer Lopez on the other hand was born to a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. Against her family’s wishes, she dropped out of college and began acting in regional musical theatre. Eventually she got her big break as a “Fly Girl” dancing in interstitial bits on In Living Color. In the ‘90s, Lopez worked the grind as an actress, appearing in pilots and small roles in movies like Jack. She got her big break playing Selena Quintanilla Perez in the biopic Selena, and followed that up with hits Anaconda and Out of Sight. During this time Lopez launched a music career, making her a rare old school triple threat in a generation of stars who cut their teeth in indie films. She bounced from romance to romance, most notably with hip hop artist and tycoon Sean “Puffy” Combs. Her most electric pop culture moment? Wearing a low cut Versace gown to the 2000 Grammys. J. Lo was a pop star, fashion icon, and groundbreaking Latina movie star in 2002.

That’s when she and Ben Affleck collided on the set of a film called…Gigli….

Where to stream Good Will Hunting

Where to stream Selena

In a 2003 NBC interview with the then-engaged pair (promoting their film Gigli), Affleck and Lopez revealed that although they met at parties, they didn’t fall for each other until meeting for the Gigli table read in 2002. Lopez goes on to crow about how Ben is the best person in all of Hollywood to improvise on set with and the two tease each other non-stop.

Some interesting gossip-worthy takeaways in just this short bootleg clip? The usually in-control Lopez seems to cede some of her power for once.

“Ben wears the pants,” she says. “I’m traditional in a way, where I like to take on the woman roles in certain things. Like I like to cook and I like to make sure he has things. I’m a caretaker. I like to take care of people and it’s no different in our relationship. I like to make sure he has everything he needs.”

When hot Pat O’Brien asks, “When’s the wedding?” Affleck jokes, “Bring in the priest!”

If nothing else, this short clip encapsulates two people at peak horny from each other. Which is wild since it was filmed after…”Jenny From the Block.”

By late 2002, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s romance was extremely public and Lopez was set to release her third studio album, This is Me…Then. The album featured numerous odes to Affleck, including the songs “I’m Glad” and “Dear Ben.” However, the most iconic single was “Jenny From the Block,” in no doubt thanks to its incredible music video.

The “Jenny From the Block” music video is as autobiographical as a pop song can come. It not only traces Lopez’s own life up to that point, but the video is a meta recreation of the exact same paparazzi attention Lopez and Affleck reportedly loathed. Here, though, they make their relationship a pointed spectacle. At one point Affleck even kisses Lopez’s famous derriere. (For context: in the early ’00s, Lopez was particularly own for her butt as flat butts were the rage. Crazy, right?)

The video is a memoir in pop song form, and one that seems to express both the explosive chemistry she and Affleck had as well as the pressures they felt under the gaze of the camera the couple couldn’t shy away from.

Maybe the first real sign there was trouble in paradise for Bennifer was when the movie that brought them together bombed. Big time. You would think that even a passing interest in the film that brought a tabloid couple together would boost box office sales, but nope. Gigli was so reviled by both critics and audiences that it almost became its own noun in the early ’00s, meaning total disaster. One huge point of contention? Affleck and Lopez’s hot real life chemistry was wholly absent from the screen.

Gigli was released in August 2003. Affleck and Lopez were supposed to wed in September 2003. One day before the wedding, the marriage was postponed. Forever?

Where to stream Gigli

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez officially called it quits in January 2004. Two months later, their second film together (and second bomb) Jersey Girl premiered in theaters. In a morbid twist, the two started off the film as a happily married couple, but Lopez’s character dies in childbirth, leaving Affleck’s a widowed single father to their daughter. You know, the titular “Jersey Girl.”

It seemed for many years that Gigli and Jersey Girl would be the two projects that bookended Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s love forever. However, there have been signs — public ones at that — that Ben and Jen weren’t really through.

Where to stream Jersey Girl

One of the first times that Jennifer Lopez reflected on her tumultuous romance with Ben Affleck publicly — and on camera — was a 2010 appearance on Britain’s The Graham Norton Show. Lopez is asked about the “Bennifer” era of her life and admits that the media scrutiny made the relationship a little more challenging.

“Our relationship did suffer,” she said, of the media attention, quickly joking she would not blame the media for anything. “It definitely played a part in the dynamic of our relationship.”

Norton then transitions to asking about Lopez’s then husband, singer and actor Marc Anthony. The question is how was that far less-publicized relationship different. Besides the fact that Anthony had been a child star in the music business, Lopez admits that she took a totally different approach to the relationship. (The implication is she realized that PDA on a boat in a music video may not have been the way to go.)

“I think when it first happens, you have the attitude of ‘I’m not going to let this take over. I’m just going to live my life,’” Lopez said. “And then you’re like being chased and on the cover of magazines all the time. Then you go, ‘Wait a minute, I do have to kind of change my life.’”

However that’s not the last time Lopez was bluntly asked about the public interest in her private life…

Around the time that Hustlers came out in late 2019, Lopez found herself a part of a major media push for awards season. (Where, she was eventually WRONGLY SNUBBED for her Oscar-worthy work in Hustlers!) One appearance took her to the venerable CBS Sunday Morning. Yes, CBS Sunday Morning got down and dirty and asked Lopez about

First Lopez talks about her first major celebrity romance with Puffy and then shifts the focus to Affleck.

“I don’t look at them as ‘eras’ in that way, but these were people in my life who I really cared about, and fell in love with. We had very special, very unique relationships… maybe that’s what captured the public’s attention in a sense? Because there was realness to them. There was an authenticity to those relationships.”

“Ben wanted to be — believe it or not — quiet, and not in the tabloids, and it was the beginning of the tabloid era. And we were kind of out there.”

“It was scary. It was overwhelming for both of us.”

“You just have to live your life. This is what I’ve learned over the years. This is why it’s great to be where I am now and at the age I am now because that stuff doesn’t bother me anymore.”

Where to stream Hustlers

In January 2021, Affleck appeared on The Hollywood Reporter’s Award Chatter podcast to talk about his recent critically-acclaimed comeback film, The Way Back. His relationship with Jennifer Lopez came up and Affleck had some choice words in defense of his former flame.

“People were so f*cking mean about her. Sexist, racist, ugly vicious sh*t was written about her. If you wrote it now, you would literally be fired,” Affleck said.

But that’s not all he had to say about Lopez. “Now she’s lionized and respected for the work she did, where she came from, and what she accomplished. As well she f*cking should be!”

While Entertainment Tonight’s recent coverage of the interview pivoted to include Lopez’s then-relationship with A. Rod and Affleck’s cooling romance with Ana de Armas, Affleck’s words now feel to be a sign of something still sizzling.

If rumors are to be believed, Affleck started reaching out to Lopez quietly in February 2021 (after the first rumors about A.Rod and Madison LeCroy emerged). Could it be that Lopez and Affleck have been carrying flames for each other all this time? Could it also be that Lopez and Affleck are now mature enough to handle the public scrutiny? Could it just be this is all hype for Gigli 2: Electric Giglaloo?

Who knows but the fates, but for now we can at least hope that Bennifer is once again real.

Where to stream The Way Back