Since Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce from Ben Affleck last week, the narrative about which spouse is more responsible for the quick demise of their epic romance has turned against him.
In recent days, Lopez “insiders” and others have been leaking stories about the 52-year-old Affleck being moody, controlling, indifferent to her children and to trying to work on their marriage of fewer than two years.
Reports also suggest that the Oscar-winner actor, director and writer is fine with calling it quits with Lopez, 55, for a number of reasons, including an alleged, “budding romance” with a member of the Kennedy family, with whom he enjoyed a “brief fling” before he rekindled his relationship with the pop megastar, as the Daily Mail reported.
Multiple outlets, including Page Six and People have reported that Affleck has been spending time around Los Angeles in recent weeks with 36-year-old Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, a sometime actor and the daughter of polarizing former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On Monday, sources insisted to TMZ that Affleck and Kennedy, a Stanford graduate who is said to bear a resemblance to his first wife Jennifer Garner, are “not dating” and are “definitely not a couple,” despite “buzz” about them hanging out together. They are just “buddies,” TMZ reported.
But later Monday, the Daily Mail cited a source who said that Affleck had “a brief fling” with Kennedy before he got back together with Lopez in 2021.
“They met because Ben is from Boston and when you live in Boston, the Kennedy family is royalty,” the source told the Daily Mail. “When he started hanging out with Kick, he legit thought that he had landed into the Kennedy family. But she was too young and not ready for anything serious.”
The admiration appears to be mutual, with a source telling Page Six Monday that her “celeb crush has always been Ben.”
If there is a romance between Affleck and Kennedy, the Daily Mail source insisted that it never overlapped with the actor’s relationship with Lopez. “They didn’t have any affair during his marriage, but it is interesting to Kick’s friends that as soon as this divorce happened all of a sudden Ben is hanging out with an old hookup whose family he sees as royalty,” the Daily Mail source said.
Indeed, the Daily Mail source stressed that Kennedy didn’t begin spending time again with Affleck until he assured her that he was separated from Lopez, who listed April 26 as their official separation date on her Aug. 20 divorce filing for irreconcilable difference.
The granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy and great-niece of John F. Kennedy also knows how to keep secrets and has remained tight-lipped about her association with Affleck because she doesn’t want to be seen as “a mistress,” the Daily Mail source said. Also, unlike the famously attention-seeking Lopez, she “likes to keep her private life private,” the source added.
The news about Affleck’s association with Kennedy adds to the maelstrom of revelations coming from Lopez “insiders” and others, who appear to be trying to portray the “Argo” actor and director as the villain in the breakup.
These sources describe the various ways that Lopez genuinely trusted that Affleck was just as committed as she was to the idea that they finally had found true, everlasting love, after they rekindled the epic, high-profile romance they first shared in the early 2000s. These sources also said that Lopez tried to salvage the marriage, even after he moved out of their $68 million Beverly Hills mansion they purchased together.
“She tried really hard to make things work,” an insider told People. But Affleck — who bought himself a a $20 million L.A. mansion in July, when Lopez was vacationing on the East Coast — wasn’t as invested.
“She truly believed this was the greatest love story she’d ever known and she was finally getting her chance at the fairy tale,” one Hollywood source told Page Six. “She just really didn’t stop to consider who the actual man was (in) the fairy tale.”
Multiple reports, including from Page Six and In Touch Weekly, affirm the argument that the actor was pressing to end the marriage. One part of this Affleck narrative holds that he’s newly sober and healthy, after spending years battling alcohol addiction and hurting his career and first marriage to Garner in the process. He realized that his love affair with Lopez was “a fever dream” and that he no longer wanted to live the emotional “roller coaster” of being with a woman who wants the “big love” fantasy and who always needs be in the spotlight.
The Page Six source said that Lopez’s “big love” idea is “not in (Ben’s) DNA” — adding, “Ben has a darkness to him that no other person can fix. (His first wife) Jen Garner couldn’t fix it, all the success in the world couldn’t fix it.”
In recent days, the narrative that Lopez is the injured party has begun to hold sway. In addition to the Kick Kennedy rumors, pro-Lopez sources have come out of the woodwork, so to speak, to share other ways that Affleck has not behaved admirably:
Affleck has ended contact with Lopez’s children, while she remains close to his
When Lopez and Affleck rekindled their romance, Lopez reportedly worked hard to blend their two families together and to be a friend to his three children with Jennifer Garner. Since the separation, Lopez has remained close to his children, Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12, letting herself be photographed spending time with Violet, for example, during her getaway to the Hamptoms in July.
But Affleck has not reciprocated the outreach to her two children, 16-year-old twins, Max and Emme, a source told People.
“(Jennifer) went out there and told the world what a great dad he was,” the source said. “The fact that he has not seen her kids in a long time, it’s like he left. … She keeps in touch with the children and she’s a good mom.”
Ben Affleck’s unpredictable moods
Despite Lopez’s love for Affleck, his “extreme and sudden” mood changes ultimately drove a wedge between them and created “a toxicity” in their relationship that was “pervasive,” a source also told People.
“The truth is there was a great deal of love but also unfortunately what became clear were Ben’s erratic mood swings that he couldn’t hide from the press, as much as he tried to,” the source says.
“You could see the erratic behavior, the giant mood swings,” the source continued, describing how the actor would go from “being incredibly happy and warm — the best light that emanated from him” to exhibiting “the deepest, darkest behavior.”
Affleck was “the driving force” behind Lopez opening up about their marriage in her documentary
Lopez has faced ridicule for making a gushing documentary about their rekindled romance and giving it the grandiose title, “The Greatest Love Story Never Told.” She released the documentary in February, as one of two movies to serve as companion pieces to her new album, “This is Me … Now” and her planned summer concert.
But given the timing of their separation, the marriage already was troubled when the documentary was released. The film also portrayed Lopez as needy for constant media attention, as she appeared to get candid about her much publicized habit of cycling through relationships, engagements and marriages. At one point in the documentary, Lopez acknowledged that people are probably wondering, “What is this girl’s (expletive) problem?”
Perhaps most problematic, Lopez was accused of breaking Affleck’s confidence with the revelation that she shared love notes he had written to her with musicians helping to write her new album.
But sources told People that Affleck was “fully on board” with the documentary, instead of being the reluctant participant he portrays himself to be. In fact, he was heavily involved in the editing.
“When you look at the doc, it looks like he’s surprised by it and not signing up for it,” a source told People. “He was playing the role of playing the regular guy and meanwhile, he was the engine in back of it.”
“He definitely took it away from the director so he could have the narrative he wanted out there,” the source added. “It’s confusing (because) he was so involved and so proud of Jennifer because she really got in there … but in the doc, it looks like he was surprised. ‘You’re making an album about our [relationship]?'”
Another source said the documentary was Affleck’s idea for Artists Equity, the production company he runs with buddy Matt Damon. “He was the one who had control, pretty much,” the source said. Meanwhile, Lopez went along with his idea, even though she was busy, trying to put out her album and prepare for her summer concert tour — which she ended up canceling following weak ticket sales.
