Ben Affleck’s Playboy Interview Resurfaces

An old interview with Ben Affleck in which he discussed his subpar coping tendencies within the context of romantic relationships is making the rounds in the wake of the actor’s divorce from Jennifer Lopez. 

In the excerpt, from a December 1999 issue of Playboy, the interviewer asks Ben, 52, if his ‘other former girlfriends [are] generally p**sed off’ at him.

To this, Ben candidly responds, ‘Mostly, yeah.’

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Prompted to elaborate, he further admits: ‘Probably justifiably so. If I were the next guy to go out with them I’m sure I would be nodding in agreement about what an a**hole their ex-boyfriend was.

An old interview with Ben Affleck in which he discussed his poor coping tendencies in the context of relationships has resurfaced in the wake of his divorce from Jennifer Lopez 

In the story, from the December 1999 issue of Playboy, the interview asks Ben if his ‘other former girlfriends [are] generally p**sed off’ at him

‘It’s not like I was a womanizer or physically abusive or psychologically abusive or whatever,’ he clarified.

‘It’s just that these relationships never end well.’

He continued: ‘I think what happens is, I end up wanting to be out of the relationship. 

‘During the course of a relationship, if you get dissatisfied and unhappy and don’t say something, if you don’t deal with it right then, it just festers and stays there.

‘So instead of saying, “Look, don’t do that, please don’t act this way,” I go along with it until I just don’t want to be in the relationship at all.

‘Then I create some incident or do something or just don’t call. And then she’s p**sed. 

‘And I can’t necessarily blame her at that point since I’ve developed such a passive-aggressive rage that I have no sympathy and tell her, “Well of course I didn’t call you. If you weren’t such a nagging, shrewish harpy I’d call you.”

‘But that hopefully is something I’m growing out of,’ the Pearl Harbor star expressed. 

‘During the course of a relationship, if you get dissatisfied and unhappy and don’t say something, if you don’t deal with it right then, it just festers and stays there,’ he said (pictured at the time in 1999) 

In 1999, Ben was in the midst of an on-again, off-again relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow (left). Prior to Gwyneth, Ben’s first major romantic relationship was with director Cheyenne Rothman, whom he dated from 1990 to 1997 (right)

‘Bennifer’ was born after Ben and Jennifer Lopez, now 55, met on the set of Gigli, kicking off a two-year relationship that ended in 2004 

Commenters on the gossip subreddit r/Fauxmoi, where the excerpt has gone viral, were quick to weight in. 

‘”But that hopefully is something I’m growing out of.” Unfortunately, I have bad news for 1999 Ben Affleck,’ one quipped. 

‘Narrator: He never grew out of it,’ a second bantered.

‘This is a great example of why self-awareness as a trait is meaningless on its own, if you don’t have the emotional maturity to actually do something about the pattern you keep finding yourself in. 

‘This man figured it out more than two decades ago and then decided to keep inflicting himself on his partners hoping they’d fix him somehow,’ declared one armchair psychoanalyst. 

‘Dismissive avoidant? Anyway he sucks but it must be tragic to go through 20 years continually making the same mistakes over and over again,’ another echoed.  

‘So instead of saying, “Look, don’t do that, please don’t act this way,” I go along with it until I just don’t want to be in the relationship at all,’ he shared

Commenters weighed in on Ben’s apparent inability to break his bad habits when it comes to his long-term relationships

By 1999, Ben was in an on-again off-again relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow, now 51, who he began dating in 1997 and with whom he had co-starred in Shakespeare in Love (1998) and later in Bounce (2000).

Ben had been in one major serious relationship prior to Gwyneth with director Cheyenne Rothman, also now 52.

He and Cheyenne, who met while the two were still in high school, dated from 1990 to 1997 before she reportedly dumped him in the midst of his skyrocketing fame. 

After splitting with Gwyneth in 2000, Ben infamously stuck up his first ill-fated romance with JLo, 55, in 2002 after co-starring in 2003’s much-maligned Gigli – and ‘Bennifer’ was born.

The two got engaged before splitting up in 2004.

Both went on to to marry and divorce other people – Ben to Jennifer Garner and JLo to Marc Antony. 

In 2021, however, Bennifer saw its second coming as sparks appeared to be flying between the two amid a post-pandemic romantic rekindling. 

The pair finally tied the knot in 2022, first with an intimate Las Vegas chapel wedding, followed by a larger wedding at Ben’s lavish estate in Hampton Island, Georgia.

But, just two years later, Bennifer has fallen back apart, with JLo officially filing for divorce as of August 20, 2024.