Days after Jennifer Lopez filed for divorce, Ben Affleck was spotted leaning on friends Matt Damon and Luciana Barroso.
Photos shared by TMZ on Monday, August 26, show Affleck, 52, out to dinner with Damon, Barroso and their daughters. Affleck is dressed casually in jeans, sneakers and a white t-shirt beneath a tan button-up. Damon, on the other hand, wore a black polo and dark jeans to complement his wife’s all-black outfit. (Damon and Barroso share four daughters: Isabella, 18, Gia, 15, and Stella, 13. Damon is stepfather to Barroso’s daughter Alexia, 25, from a previous marriage.)
Earlier this month, Damon, 53, said during a “Radio Times” podcast interview that he had been “really lucky” in his acting career not to have had to deal with the same “kind of scrutiny” as his other actor friends, including Affleck. “It’s been like that for 25 years,” he said. “And we’ve had parallel careers in a lot of ways. I’m fortunate to have been kind of excused from that part.”
Lopez, 55, filed for divorce from Affleck in Los Angeles County Court on Tuesday, August 20, after two years of marriage. Court documents obtained by Us Weekly list their separation date as April 26, citing irreconcilable differences as the reason for their split. She also petitioned to remove “Affleck” from her last name.
A source exclusively told Us in August that Lopez and Affleck “had gone through all the details” of their “planned” divorce before she legally filed and had “already agreed” to the terms. “J.Lo finally pulled the trigger because that was their agreement that she would file, and she was the one who ultimately made the decision,” the insider shared. Still, it wasn’t a coincidence, per another source, that she filed on the second anniversary of their Georgia wedding.
Rumors regarding the status of their marriage began in May after the couple had not been spotted together for weeks. At the time, a source had exclusively confirmed to Us that Affleck and Lopez were “living separate lives” as they attempted to work through their marital problems and that Lopez had “suggested they just take time to figure it out.”
A different source had told Us that there was a “sliver of hope” for the future of their relationship, but this turned out not to be the case if Lopez’s filing is any indication.
“It boiled down to [the fact that] they are two different people,” another source told Us in August, adding that it had become “apparent” that they were “not a good match” for each other after they tied the knot. The source noted that if there was a “final straw,” it was the purchase of their $68 million mansion in Beverly Hills, which they are still attempting to sell. “It wasn’t what he wanted or who he is,” the source said.
Beyond finding support in Damon, an insider told Us that Affleck had reached out to ex-wife Jennifer Garner for support during his divorce from Lopez.
“Ben and Jennifer are friends, and they have a great coparenting relationship,” the source shared. Garner and Affleck share three children: Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12.
“There’s a deep level of trust and respect between them,” the source noted, saying Affleck “has confided in Jen in a lot of ways” regarding his split from J.Lo. “Especially lately when things with J.Lo haven’t been so great in recent months,” per the insider.
