Fans Think Ben Affleck & Jennifer Lopez Are On The Rocks After Video Of Him Shutting Her Car Door — 'Chivalry Isn't Dead But It Looks Like Happiness Is'
Lopez has been gushing about how blissful she and Affleck are, but fans are not buying it
Tinseltown / Shutterstock & TikTok Just as they did in the 2000s, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck seem to work overtime to tell us how happy they are. The couple is constantly gushing about how blissful their reunion has been in interviews, even as video clip after video clip seems to indicate the opposite.
A recent viral paparazzi clip appears to be no exception, and it's got fans once again speculating about the pair's relationship.
A viral video of Ben Affleck Shutting Jennifer Lopez's car door has fans thinking the pair is on the rocks.
At face value, the clip is nothing special—men shut car doors for their girlfriends and wives all the time, right? But a closer glance gives another impression entirely, and fans have seized on it as yet another indicator that all is not well in the Affleck-Lopez household.
Fans can't get over how angry Affleck appears to be as he shuts Lopez's car door.
The video starts off about as innocuously as you'd expect for, well, a video of Ben Affleck shutting Jennifer Lopez's car door. How interesting can it actually be, right? Even the TikTok account that first made the video go viral, @moviemaniacs, cast it simply as a glimpse into Affleck's gentlemanly dynamic with Lopez. The onscreen text on their video reads, "Ben Affleck shows chivalry isn't dead."
But God is in the details, as they say, and the way Affleck shuts Lopez's door gives the video a whole different flavor. Once she's safely settled inside the car, Affleck flings the door closed with a certain exasperation that seems pretty obvious—it's the sort of way you'd close a car door when you're down to your absolute last nerve. Affleck even continues to swing his arm up as if wanting to backhand the car window.
Of course, it may have all been nothing but a casual gesture, and his face at the very end makes it clearly that he is in fact deeply annoyed—but at the paparazzi for filming them, not necessarily Lopez. Still, the look on his face throughout the video makes him seem pretty nakedly miserable, and people online couldn't help but notice yet another example of Lopez and Affleck seeming to be on two different pages when they're not on a red carpet.
Jennifer Lopez frequently gushes about how blissfully happy she and Ben Affleck are, despite evidence to the contrary.
Funnily enough, the diva was just effusively mooning over her husband to Access Hollywood on the very same day the video of Ben Affleck shutting Jennifer Lopez's car door went viral.
In a video taken while she was walking the red carpet at the premiere of her new Netflix action movie "The Mother," Lopez gushes over the past year with Affleck. Lopez said she was looking forward to spending her first Mother's Day with Affleck, telling Access Hollywood's Scott Evans, "This whole entire year has been so special, since getting married last year and having a lot of firsts this year together so, it’s been beautiful."
But the video of Affleck seemingly angrily closing her car door is only one of several moments in the past year where the couple seemed to be less than happy, most notably at the January 2023 premiere party of Lopez's movie "Shotgun Wedding" when the two appeared to be fighting over whether or not Affleck, a recovering alcoholic, was drinking at the celebration.
Then, just a couple weeks later, the two were spotted seeming to squabble at the Grammys in February 2023. Eagle-eyed lip readers thought they caught Lopez scolding Affleck for kissing her on camera, telling him to "look more friendly" and "motivated" instead of being romantic.
Fans are not convinced by Jennifer Lopez's gushing about her and Ben Affleck's relationship.
J.Lo may have finely honed public relations skills from her nearly 30 years in the Hollywood spotlight, but a lot of fans are not buying her version of events with Affleck. They seized on the video of Ben Affleck shutting Jennifer Lopez's car door and what they thought Affleck's face and body language revealed.
"Chivalry isn’t dead, but it looks like happiness is," one TikToker quipped. Others noticed how "they always look miserable together," and that "Ben looks like he’s carrying all the world’s problems on his back." Another user noted that "this guy always looks like he’s so tired with his life," an attitude one user called "resting misery face."
But there is an elephant room that could easily explain Affleck's seemingly constant disgruntlement—the incessant hounding the couple receives from the paparazzi. "Everyone commenting on the door slam saying he’s over her already," one TikToker wrote, "he’s clearly over being watched, filmed, photographed for everything he does."
Still, the disconnect between the image Lopez projects of their relationship and what seems to always be written all over Affleck's face is hard to deny. But then, who can blame them—when your every move is going to be deconstructed regardless, you might as well try to control the narrative.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.