NEED TO KNOW
- Jennifer Garner broke her signature silence in a Marie Claire interview, describing Bennifer 2.0’s rise and fall as a major “family shake-up” that shook her sense of self.
- Despite being Ben Affleck’s ex-wife and the mother of his three children, Garner stayed remarkably composed throughout his marriage to and divorce from Jennifer Lopez, even reportedly encouraging him to work on the relationship.
- Garner says she now feels “lighter and happier and more myself” — proof that surviving a Hollywood circus, even from the sidelines, is its own kind of victory.
Let’s set the scene. It’s 2021. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are back together after nearly two decades apart, the internet is collectively losing its mind, and somewhere in Los Angeles, Jennifer Garner is just trying to drop her kids off at school without becoming a meme. Being the ex-wife of one half of the most tabloid-ready couple in Hollywood history is not exactly a role anyone auditions for — and yet, there she was.
Now, for the first time, Garner is actually talking about it.
In a recent Marie Claire interview, the actress opened up about the emotional weight of watching Bennifer 2.0 explode across every headline while she quietly co-parented on the sidelines. Garner admitted that the period brought “renewed scrutiny to a chapter she had long worked to close quietly.” Which, honestly, is the most diplomatically restrained way anyone has ever described having their ex-husband’s rekindled romance become a global event.
Her reason for speaking up now? Empathy, mostly. “Time has passed, and other women are going through really hard seasons in their lives, and I think it’s helpful to know that time will go on and you will get to the other side,” she told the magazine. It’s a characteristically Garner move — she’s not here to drag anyone. She’s here to be useful.
Garner and Ben Affleck were married from 2005 to 2018, sharing three children together: Violet, 20, Finn, 17, and Samuel, 12. Their split was already tabloid gold on its own terms. Then Bennifer 2.0 happened. Affleck and Jennifer Lopez rekindled their romance in early 2021, got engaged in April 2022, and married in Las Vegas in July of that same year — and just like that, Garner’s carefully constructed private life was back under a microscope.
The kicker? She apparently handled it better than most of us would. Sources close to the situation reported that Garner was actively rooting for the marriage to work. “Jennifer Garner is encouraging Ben to work on his marriage to Jen,” an insider told Us Weekly, adding that Garner “knows firsthand that being in the spotlight can put a strain” on any relationship. Co-parenting goals, honestly.
But rooting for it and living through it are two different things. Garner described what the whole experience felt like from the inside with striking candor. “Oh my gosh, has this family shake-up — has it changed me forever?” she recalled wondering. That’s the kind of question that sits with you at 2 a.m., not the kind you answer in a press junket.
The answer, it turns out, is no. She told Marie Claire, “I feel lighter and happier and more myself [than I have] in a really long time.” Good for her. Genuinely.
As for Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s marriage itself? Lopez officially filed for divorce on August 20, 2024, citing April 26 as their separation date — revealing that the marriage had been on the rocks for months before the public knew. The divorce was finalized in January 2025. Affleck told GQ, “There’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue” about their split, which is perhaps the most Hollywood thing anyone has ever said about ending a marriage that was itself the subject of a documentary.
Through it all, Garner has been a study in restraint. She made clear in the Marie Claire piece that telling her side of the story was never really the point. “There was no way to talk about it, and it’s certainly not my place to talk about him or his experience or anything he’s gone through, or my children or their experience,” she said.
Meanwhile, the sources can’t stop talking about it for her. An insider told StyleCaster that “Ben has more respect for Jen than anyone else in his life” and that “she’s stood by him through his darkest moments, and he trusts her without question.” Another source noted that “Jen and Ben still have a ton of love and respect for each other” and that “their friendship is very much intact.”
The math here is not complicated. Jennifer Garner came out of Bennifer 2.0 looking like the most composed person in a very chaotic room. She survived her marriage, her divorce, her ex-husband’s second-act romance, and the documentary about it—and she’s still doing so, feeling “lighter.”
Ben Affleck has a thing for women named Jennifer. Jennifer Garner, for her part, seems to have finally found peace regardless.
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