The promotional videos couldn’t look glossier. A perfect Italian summer’s day, the rugged Amalfi coast in the backdrop, beautiful people smiling and clinking glasses — and, at the centre of the group, an exquisitely made-up Jennifer Lopez. She smiles knowingly to the camera, as she prepares to sip her drink.
This, then, was the launch of J-Lo’s own cocktail range, Delola. In common with other Hollywood celebrities such as Sarah Jessica Parker and George Clooney, J-Lo had sought to develop her own alcohol offering in an effort to further monetise her empire.
One wonders if the brand of spirits and fruit juice mixes were really worth it.
For, as a friend close to her husband Ben Affleck told Dailymail.com, her alcohol venture was ‘one of the things that broke the camel’s back’.
However, it’s understood that the drinks company was started prior to them getting back together and Ben was aware and supportive of the business.
Indeed, they go so far as to say it contributed to Ben, not Jen, being the one to pull the plug on their union amid speculation that their marriage is finally at an end.
Why was Ben, 51, so infuriated by this high-profile commercial enterprise? Friends say that, as a recovering alcoholic, he felt his wife selling vodka and tequila tipples was insulting to him. He had, after all, spent many years battling his addiction.
When the label was first launched last year, he was said to be devastated.
His hurt was only heightened by his belief that her motivation for launching her drinks’ brand was purely financial — for cold, hard cash.
First seeking help for his alcoholism in 2001, Ben has since been in rehab multiple times. His drinking led to the breakdown of his marriage to Jennifer Garner.
To make matters worse, J-Lo then went on a very public promo campaign where she told the Press how much she loves to drink to ‘relax and let loose’.
Even this week, she released an image of herself lounging on a sunbed in a swimming costume to advertise the latest addition to the range.
One friend of the actor told the Mail: ‘Ben had to fight to get his life back after overcoming alcohol. Knowing how he lost everything including the love of his family, knowing that he could possibly relapse, Jen decided to start her own spritzer line for more money, as if she did not have enough.
‘This was one of the things that broke the camel’s back. But Ben saved his sobriety.’
Last week, the Mail revealed how Jen and Ben — who starred in Oscar-winning movies such as Good Will Hunting and Argo — have prepared their divorce paperwork and will file at the end of the summer.
In May 2023, Ben moved out of their sprawling Beverly Hills mansion, which they bought shortly after they married in July, 2022.
After a final attempt at reconciliation in recent weeks failed, the couple’s divorce documents ‘are finalised, but not yet turned in’, multiple sources have claimed.
One said: ‘They are waiting for the right time to drop them. At that time, they will release a joint statement that will say how they have much love for each other and how they fought to make it work, but couldn’t.
‘Honestly, in the end, they could not come to a compromise. What they had before is gone and they have both accepted it.’
It’s a sorry end to what looked like being an inspiring tale of rekindled lost love.
The pair got together in 2002, became engaged, but split in 2004 before they got married.
Ben went on to marry Jennifer Garner in 2005, and they had three children together, before splitting in 2015 and finalising their divorce three years later.
Jo-Lo went on to marry singer/songwriter Marc Anthony, with whom she had 16-year-old twins. Their marriage lasted ten years.
In 2021, following J-Lo’s doomed engagement to baseball player Alex Rodriguez, Ben and the singer got back together, delighting fans and fascinating the world’s Press by equal measure.
The following year they tied the knot in Las Vegas, then held a second lavish ceremony at Ben’s $9 million (£7) plantation property in Georgia.
However, the couple have not been seen together for weeks, with Ben staying away from J-Lo’s Bridgerton-themed 55th birthday party last month.
Instead, he bought a $20 (£16) million bachelor pad in Los Angeles after the couple put their $68 million (£53) million house in Beverly Hills up for sale.
But as far back as last year there were issues. When J-Lo launched her drinks brand Delola in April 2023, to Ben this was a warning sign that she valued her career more than him.
His desire for a private life, and hers for a no-hold’s barred, access-all-areas kind of exposure, then came to a head this year.
While he made efforts to accommodate her need for publicity, their different attitudes to their careers shook the foundations of their marriage.
A friend said: ‘Ben was the one to pull the plug on their marriage here. Jennifer had him believe she was the same person that she was when they fell in love the first time, so he saw this as picking right back up. He doesn’t like the celebrity red carpet thing, but he did it because she loved it.
‘Her obsession with fame became too much for him. She needed to be photographed and adored. She would share so much of herself with the world that he felt there was nothing left sacred for him. She needed to do this. This had become a part of who she was — fame.
‘It wasn’t just a job, but a way of life for her and she could not give this act up in the end. She chose fame over him, just as she did with her previous three marriages.’
Indeed, J-Lo appeared to be moulding much of her new, lucrative commercial output around their revitalised romance. Some go so far as to say that he was fuming that her new album centred around him — and that he was entirely opposed to her TV documentary, This Is Me… Now: A Love Story.
This documentary told the story of Jen’s journey to love through her own eyes, and was relentlessly mocked, flopping among audiences and losing millions.
A source close to the couple say Ben was furious. ‘He didn’t want her to do this at all. She asked him to invest in it and be involved in a project he was absolutely against.
‘In the end, he was glad it flopped. It too destroyed their marriage.
‘Ben didn’t want it [their love story] to be told. Only she did.
‘They lost £18 million and [it] ruined Ben’s trust in her. Ben seeing her spread their love letters on a table for others to read [as she did onscreen] infuriated him. This is when he knew that she put fame above love.’
But friends say that J-Lo apparently sold it to Amazon at a profit after having self-financed it for that amount.
Indeed, during the documentary, J-Lo showed a book to the camera, saying: ‘This book is a book Ben gave me on our first Christmas back together. It is every letter and every mail that we wrote each other from 20 years ago and today.’
She highlighted one note that read: ‘The Greatest Love Story Never Told by Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck 2001-2010… and counting…’
But a friend of Ben’s said: ‘He asked her to not do the documentary because he wanted to keep this stuff private — and because it cost too much money — but she did it anyway. He asked her to pull back from doing red carpets and events so much and she wouldn’t listen. She dragged him out anyway. It was never about him. It was always about her.’
Certainly, back in May, the pair looked tense at the premiere of J-Lo’s Netflix film The Mother. She later revealed they had clashed over her outfit choices, saying: ‘He’ll joke with me sometimes … he’ll say things like, ‘Where’s the rest of that shirt?’.
‘I’m like, ‘Oh, this one doesn’t have anything else’.’
Then, suddenly, J-Lo called off her upcoming summer tour, telling fans she was ‘taking time off to be with her children, family and close friends.’
Shortly afterwards, Ben was pictured with actress ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, taking their son Samuel, 12, to basketball practice in Santa Monica.
The next day J-Lo arrived to also see Samuel play and shared an awkward-looking kiss with her husband. The Batman actor has been seen recently without his wedding ring, while his wife has kept hers on.
Then there was their house — that £53 million whopper in Beverly Hills. Ben, it seems, simply thought it was too expensive.
Friends say J-Lo thought this would make the family — her twins Emme and Max, 16, and Ben’s kids Violet, 19, Fin, 15, and Samuel, 12 — happy. It didn’t.
‘Buying that massive house was another huge red flag,’ said one close to Ben. ‘He didn’t want that house because it cost a ridiculous amount of money. It never felt like home to him and he cannot even believe that he moved into the home.
‘She didn’t want a marital home for them to grow old in. She wanted a massive structure that cost more than anyone else’s home to flaunt her wealth and her marriage in. She thought that this would make everyone happy. They fought relentlessly about this.’
A slide in her career, which she fought so relentlessly to succeed in, after the failure of the documentary also apparently caused tensions, according to a source.
‘She became less popular, less people wanted to see her perform and this made her irate and she took it out on Ben. She started to realise her star was fading and he told her it was her own fault because she was overexposed.
‘She took the fact that her documentary and album was a flop out on Ben because, as her husband, he was the closest one to her. He asked her to take a step back and she didn’t. He wasn’t a huge fan of her new album being so centred around him and she thought it was beautiful.’
Sources say that their five children are keen to stay in touch, despite the fraught emotions that surrounded the very public demise of their parents’ romance.
A source said: ‘It is hard on the kids, but in the end they are all pretty grown up. Enough grown up to be able to see that it was not working between their parents. The kids will be okay and will still be close. Becoming a family for a minute was fun and this will always be special in their hearts.’
J-Lo, though, is now single at 55 with four marriages under her belt. Friends fear she sabotages her romances.
‘She knows she destroyed it all and was super apologetic, but it was too late,’ one said. ‘He tried for a couple weeks, giving her the benefit of the doubt, and even wore the ring because she asked him to so that they could get a little space from the hounding Press, but he’s done.
‘He found his own home and she is not living in it. It is in his name. She knows this and now it is time for them both to move on.’
Ben, apparently, is giving his estranged wife ‘time to rebrand’.
Friends of the singer say she has changed the way she dresses and the way she presents herself.
‘She is smiling in public, and she is not acting all like a diva. Her social media is bright and happy, and she is speaking about her true feelings of being fragile.
‘She is staying out of the spotlight and keeping her life private. Basically, Jennifer is now pretending to be the person that Ben thought she was all along. This made him fall in love with her, but he is not going to fall a third time. Two strikes she’s out. They are done.’