Jennifer Lopez shuts down reporter asking about Ben Affleck marriage

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Jennifer Lopez had no time for a reporter who tried to ask about her “situation” with husband Ben Affleck while she was promoting her Netflix film Atlas in Mexico this week.

In footage that has gone viral after it was posted on social media by Mexican entertainment news show El Gordo y La Flaca, a journalist asks the 54-year-old actress about the status of her relationship with Affleck.

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“Is your divorce with Ben Affleck real? These rumours?” the unidentified reporter asked at a press conference. “What is the truth? … What is the truth of the situation?”

Lopez’s co-star, Simu Liu, leapt in and said. “OK we’re not doing that. Thank you so much guys, we really appreciate it. Thank you.”

After first smiling and trying to laugh the query off, Lopez then looked directly at the reporter and said: “You know better than that.”

“Don’t come in here with that energy, please,” Liu added.

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Liu then tried to move the conversation back to the film, thanking Lopez for casting him in a key role.

“If I could just end on one thing,” Liu said. “Jen is a producer on this movie and the reason why I am here and why Sterling (K. Brown) was in this beautiful movie is because Jen cares. And Jen cares about things like representation and diversity, and she’s a boss.”

Amid questions about the health of her marriage, Lopez has been hitting the press trail for her streaming sci-fi film, in which she plays a counterterrorism analyst who has to team up with a tech warrior to capture a renegade robot. 

One insider told PEOPLE that she and Affleck have buckled under the intense media scrutiny surrounding their high-profile relationship.

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“They just have very different approaches when it comes to media attention. Ben hates all attention and it makes him very uncomfortable. Jennifer has always had a different approach,” the source says.

Their marriage is “not in the best place at the moment,” another insider connected to Lopez told PEOPLE earlier this week.

“Jen and Ben are having issues in their marriage,” another confidante revealed to Us Weekly. “They started having issues a few months ago as Jen had started ramping up work commitments and prepping for her tour.”

The news came after an InTouch report was published last week in which an insider declared the two are headed for splitsville.

“The writing is on the wall – it’s over,” the source claimed. “They’re headed for a divorce – and for once, (Ben’s) not to blame!”

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Earlier last week, Affleck was photographed by TMZ leaving a Los Angeles-area home he’s been staying at by himself.

The two were later photographed smiling together over the weekend in California, but their appearance together marked only the second time they’d been seen in public since late March.

Affleck and Lopez started dating over 20 years ago after they met on the set of Gigli and they were engaged from 2002 to 2004. Dubbed “Bennifer,” the pair’s romance was tabloid fodder highlighted by glitzy movie premieres and a 6.1 carat, pink diamond engagement ring. But the couple called off their wedding at the last-minute in 2003 and ended their relationship a few months later.

After their breakup, Lopez moved on with singer Marc Anthony, with whom she had two children, while Affleck married Garner and became a father to three. Both unions ended in divorce.

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The former flames rekindled their old romance in 2021, after Lopez broke off her engagement with retired baseball slugger Alex Rodriguez, and wed the following year.

Lopez explored their reunion in her 2024 Prime Video documentary The Greatest Love Story Never Told, which Affleck reluctantly participated in.

“I just said to him during one of the parts of the movie, I was like, ‘Is this weird?’ He’s like, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘You’re crazy.’ I told him he was crazy, not me. But I know that I’m a crazy one. I get that part,” she said at a Q&A for the film in February.

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