Why J. Lo Filing for Divorce From Ben Affleck on August 20 Is Significant

The day Jennifer Lopez chose to file for divorce from Ben Affleck has quite the significance.

Us Weekly confirmed that Lopez, 55, filed for divorce from Affleck, 51, on Tuesday, August 20, at a court in Los Angeles. The date marks the two-year anniversary of the pair’s second wedding ceremony, where they celebrated their nuptials with friends and family at Affleck’s Savannah, Georgia estate in 2022. (Affleck and Lopez secretly tied the knot in Las Vegas in July 2022.)

Lopez listed her and Affleck’s date of separation as April 26. The actress allegedly submitted the filing herself instead of through an attorney.

News of the split comes amid months of reports that Lopez and Affleck’s marriage was on the rocks after the duo weren’t spotted together for weeks. In May, Us confirmed that Affleck moved out of his and Lopez’s shared Beverly Hills home.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s Relationship Timeline

After the twosome did not publicly acknowledge their second wedding anniversary in July, a source exclusively told Us that Affleck and Lopez were “doing their own thing” while they worked on a potential reconciliation.

“Jennifer suggested they just take time to figure it out,” the insider explained, reiterating that the duo were “living separate lives” at the time.

Lopez and Affleck have a lot of history. They began their romance in 2002 after falling in love on the set of their film Gigli. The pair got engaged but called off the wedding in 2004. Affleck later moved on with ex-wife Jennifer Garner with whom he shares three children: Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 11. Lopez, for her part, was married to Marc Anthony from 2004 to 2014. They welcomed twins Max and Emme, 16, in 2008. (Lopez was also previously married to Ojani Noa for 11 months in 1997 and Cris Judd from 2001 to 2002. She was engaged to Alex Rodriguez between 2019 and 2021.)

Nearly two decades after their first breakup, Affleck and Lopez rekindled their relationship in 2021. The actor proposed for a second time the following year. During a January 2023 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Lopez opened up about her and Affleck’s decision to elope.

Jennifer Lopez's Dating History: A Timeline of Her Famous Relationships

“We were planning to get married in August in Savannah, the family was going to be there, everyone’s going to be there, and it was so stressful,” Lopez explained. “A month before, and I don’t know if you guys know this, but 20 years ago we were supposed to get married. And it kind of all fell apart back then and this time, I absolutely had a little PTSD and I was like, ‘Is this happening?’”

She continued at the time, “One day Ben just said, ‘F–k it, let’s just go to Vegas and get married tonight.’ He was like, ‘Go to rehearsal [for your show], when you get back here I’m going to have everything all set up.’”