JENNIFER LOPEZ & BEN AFFLECK THE END OF AN EPIC LOVE STORY

AFTER JUST TWO YEARS OF MARRIAGE, LOPEZ FILES FOR DIVORCE FROM AFFLECK ON THEIR ANNIVERSARY. INSIDERS SHARE WHAT WENT WRONG AND WHAT'S NEXT

- ERIC ANDERSSON, PERNILLA CEDENHEIM, ELIZABETH LEONARD, LIZ MCNEIL, ELIZABETH ROSNER and GILLIAN TELLING

Call it fate, destiny or just the mysteries of the heart. Whatever it was that brought Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck back together in 2021 didn't matter much to either of the superstars.

The former flames were simply happy to be reunited. "It is a beautiful love story that we got a second chance," Lopez told People in 2022, a few months before the couple eloped at Las Vegas's A Little White Wedding Chapel that July. And though the self-described "hopeless romantic" said she still believed in the "fairy tale," she added she wasn't as doe-eyed as she was when they were first engaged nearly two decades prior: "The 'fairy tale' is a tricky thing, as I've learned; life is more complicated."

Her words would prove to be sadly prescient. After months of mounting speculation about a rift in their marriage that neither Lopez, 55, nor Affleck, 52, ever publicly addressed, the Atlas actress quietly filed for divorce on Tuesday, Aug. 20. She let her actions and the paperwork do all the talking. The date she filed? The second anniversary of the wedding celebration the pair threw at Affleck's 87-acre property just outside Savannah. And in the documents-which seemed to suggest she and Affleck did not have a prenuptial agreement (see box, page 42)-she also asked the court to change her legal last name from Affleck back to Lopez. The filing "speaks a ton," notes a legal source.