Why Ben Affleck & Matt Damon Stopped Speaking For Months When Affleck First Started Dating Jennifer Lopez
The childhood friends hit a bump in their friendship when Bennifer first met.
Tinseltown / Shutterstock Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have been friends for the last four decades.
Both actors first met as children in the early 1980s due to them living two blocks away from each other in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As well as being good friends, Damon and Affleck are also collaborators and have worked on a few films together, including 'Good Will Hunting,' and their most recent project, the 2023 sports film, 'Air.'
However, there was a small period when Damon and Affleck were allegedly not speaking to one another, and it apparently had to do with Affleck's burgeoning relationship with Jennifer Lopez the first time around.
Matt Damon stopped speaking to Ben Affleck for months when he began dating Jennifer Lopez in 2002.
Before Affleck and Lopez rekindled their relationship in 2021, the two had first begun dating in 2002 and were engaged, before eventually breaking up. During the beginning of Affleck and Lopez's relationship, though, Damon voiced concerns about their relationship with Affleck.
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According to OK Magazine, a source revealed that Damon was worried about how the publicity from Affleck's relationship with Lopez was affecting his career.
"All the attention went to his head, and when Matt voiced his concerns about what it may do to Ben’s career, they had a falling out,” the source claimed. “They didn’t speak for months, but Ben finally came to his senses and realized Matt was only looking out for him.”
It seems Damon also publicly admitted how he felt about Lopez's impact on Affleck's career during a 2015 GQ interview, and revealed that it was "painful" for him to watch Affleck suffer. “Ten years ago, the public image of [Affleck] could not have been farther apart from who he actually is,” Damon told the publication.
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“It was like he was being cast in a role, that he was a talentless kind of meathead, with his whole relationship with Jennifer Lopez... He just got cast as this person that he wasn’t. It was just really painful. It was painful to be his friend, because it wasn’t fair, you know? To my mind, nobody really got him at all.”
Affleck himself also claimed that his relationship with Lopez and the amount of press that surrounded it negatively impacted his career. In a 2007 interview with Details magazine, via PEOPLE, Affleck opened up about his image being ruined during his 2002 to 2004 relationship with Lopez.
"What happens in this sort of bleed-over from the tabloids across your movie work,” Affleck explained. “I ended up in an unfortunate crosshair position where I was in a relationship and [the media] mostly lied and inflated a bunch of salacious stuff for the sake of selling magazines. And I paid a certain price for that."
Now, Damon is nothing but supportive of Affleck and Lopez's second-chance romance.
Following Affleck and Lopez's rekindling, Damon seems more supportive and on board with their relationship and was even present at their August 2022 wedding ceremony in Georgia.
A source told Entertainment Tonight earlier this month that the 'Jason Bourne' actor is thrilled about Affleck and Lopez's marriage.
"[Damon] loves Jen and thinks she is the best thing that has happened to Ben. Matt is glad Ben is so happy," the source told the publication. "Things are going great for Ben both career-wise and in his personal life. He feels like he can and will do anything he wants to accomplish in life now that he has Jen backing him and supporting him."
Before Affleck and Lopez's wedding, in July 2021, Damon had nothing but kind words to say about the couple during an interview with Jess Cagle on his Sirius XM show. The actor joked that he wouldn't be anything other than happy knowing that Affleck and Lopez were once again back in each other's lives.
"How else would I be?" Damon quipped about his feelings. "Like, would I be unhappy? Like, ‘I hate true love.'" He also shared his best wishes for the couple jokingly adding, "I wish them nothing, but you know, hardship."
Nia Tipton is a Brooklyn-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.