As Jennifer Lopez has often said about herself, Ben Affleck has not given up on love either, and he’s contemplated dating again.
But the 52-year-old actor, director and producer reportedly has one strict requirement for his next significant other: She must be sober or in recovery.
Affleck, who is well-known for his struggles with alcohol addiction and his reported recent efforts to stay sober, has just gone through a “tough” couple of years with his high-flying romance with Lopez, 55, and the spectacular collapse of their two-year marriage, an insider told the Daily Mail. This turmoil has showed him how important it is to stay sober and healthy.
US actress Jennifer Lopez (R) and US actor Ben Affleck attend Amazon’s “This is Me… Now: A Love Story” premiere at the Dolby theatre in Hollywood, California, February 13, 2024. (Photo by Robyn BECK / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
“Ben has not given up on relationships and finally feels ready to move forward and start dating again,” the source told the Daily Mail. “He is not going to jump into anything serious until the divorce is finalized but that does not mean he cannot date.”
But going forward, Affleck “only wants to date someone who is sober or in recovery,” the source said. “These past two years have been tough for Ben and as he begins to heal, one thing is very clear: His recovery comes before anything. He is not going to put his sobriety in jeopardy.”
After Affleck moved out of the $68 million mansion he purchased with Lopez during their short marriage and returned to bachelor life in his own rental mansion, friends feared that he could relapse and start drinking again under the strain of their very public break-up.
But Affleck reportedly stayed sober and was upset by reports about friends’ fears. “Ben tries to avoid reading the news, but it did upset him that people thought he relapsed because he had not,” the source said.
To a certain extent, Lopez fit Affleck’s requirement for a sober partner. The singer, actor and entrepreneur has long claimed that she eschews alcohol for health and beauty purposes.
But in 2023, she was seen by fans as sending very mixed messages about her support for her husband’s sober lifestyle by attaching her name to an alcohol brand, Delola, which sells ready-to-drink spritzes made with vodka, tequila or amaro.
Fans raised alarm because Lopez was newly married to a “sober partner”; her fourth husband had been to rehab multiple times and openly discussed how his alcohol abuse hurt his first marriage to Jennifer Garner and did serious damage to his career as an actor and director. On Lopez’s Instagram post, announcing her new brand partnership with Delola, followers accused her of being disrespectful to Affleck and of trying to cash in and “stay relevant.”
“J-Lo, you don’t drink,” one person said on her Instagram post announcing her new Delola partnership. “This is like something that is known and has been pointed out on numerous occasions. I mean…. I get it — a coin is a coin — but mama you don’t drink alcohol.”
It’s likely that Affleck’s commitment to sobriety means more than just not drinking. As recovery experts will say, sobriety also means a daily commitment to a new lifestyle, a focus on self-care and sometimes painful self-examination in order to transform self-destructive behaviors and attitudes into positive, healthy ones.
“Like every alcoholic, Ben just wakes up with one goal in mind. To stay sober for that day,” the source said.
Affleck first made an effort to stop drinking in 1997, according to the Daily Mail. “I just wanted to stop,” he told a reporter in 1998. He sought treatment for alcohol addiction in 2001 and went to rehab in 2017 and 2018, as his marriage to Garner was falling apart. In 2018, Garner was photographed by paparazzi, arriving at her estranged husband’s home and driving him to rehab. Despite their split, Garner has remain friends with Affleck and has been public about helping him stay healthy, so he can be an active co-parent in raising their three children.
Affleck reportedly sold Lopez “on being a changed man” when they began dating in the spring of 2021. They famously first dated from 2002 to 2004, when each was an up-and-coming young star in the entertainment world. They nearly got married, but called off their engagement and broke up, laying a lot of the blame on intense media scrutiny.
But intense media scrutiny was inevitable when Affleck and Lopez started seeing each other again in 2021. At the time, he “was just getting sober,” a source previously told Page Six. “He was in a vulnerable state, and whatever their chemistry played into that … He was in this frenzied, excitable state.”
But the whirlwind of the romance quickly slowed after they married, Page Six source reported. Affleck began to crave more privacy, and he could no longer take Lopez’s level of celebrity, the source said. “He doesn’t want (the entourage) and all the drama that comes with that in his home,” the source said.
One report said that Affleck was the one pressing for the divorce. A source told In Touch Weekly in June that a “sober, healthy” Affleck is “looking forward to the next chapter. He wants a life with serenity and peace, and escaping this roller coaster will be a relief.”
Affleck publicly disagreed with the extent to which his wife wanted to share aspects of their private life to the public. He said as much in “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” the Amazon Prime documentary she released in February and which chronicled their rekindled romance.
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The documentary showed Affleck being taken aback when he learned that she had shared his private love letters to her, going back 20 years, with musicians and songwriters working with her on her new album, “This is Me … Now.” The “Argo” star had compiled all their written communication to each other into a book that he had given to her on their first Christmas back together in 2021. He said, “Things that are private I always felt are sacred and special because, in part, they’re private.”
Affleck and Lopez officially separated in April, and Lopez filed for divorce in August, on the second anniversary of their lavish wedding ceremony at his Georgia estate.
There have been mixed reports about whether Affleck enjoyed a brief “fling” with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s daughter, Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, 36, in the wake of their split. Page Six reported that Affleck and Kick Kennedy, a socialite and sometime actor, were seen hanging out and getting cozy at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills. But a source told Daily Mail said that Affleck’s “fling” with Kick Kennedy took place before he got back together with Lopez.
For her part, Lopez also found the past year to be excruciating, as she recently told Interview magazine. “It was like my whole (expletive) world exploded,” Lopez said. She said she spent the summer feeling “lonely,” “sad” and even “desperate,” but she also realized that being “in a relationship doesn’t define me. I can’t be looking for happiness in other people. I have to have happiness within myself.”
Lopez insisted in the interview with comedian Nikki Glaser that she’s not necessarily in a rush to get into another relationship. “I’m not looking for anybody.”