HOT ROMANCE

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck back together again? It’s enough to make a jaded world go weak at the knees

- LINDSAY DE FREITAS

THEY were one of the first blended name couples in the celebrity world. Bennifer – it just rolled off the tongue. And they were so gorgeous, she with her honey skin, perfect hair and to-die-for derrière, he with his old-school Hollywood handsomeness and Oscar-on-the-mantle clout.

Then it was all over and we were sad, but there were many other blended name pairs piquing our interest. TomKat. Kimye. Gyllenspoon. Brangelina, of course. And we watched them crash and burn one by one.

But Bennifer has gone and done something to perk us up and make us believe in the power of fairytales: they’ve reunited. And the world is losing its nut.

Not that you can blame anyone – the world is a messed-up, virus-riddled place and if there’s a happy story out there, you can bet your last few cents we’re going to grab it gratefully with both hands.

Bennifer 2.0. The reunion of the beautiful. A return to an era where anything Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez did was big, big news. A time before Instagram overtook the paparazzi. Celebrities may have lived their lives in the public eye but there was still something mysterious about them. And Ben (now 48) and Jen (51) were the king and queen of it all.

Yet there’s another reason why there’s so much excitement about the Bennifer revival: noughties nostalgia is all the rage right now. Friends: The Reunion broke the streaming internet. Movies such as 2004’s Mean Girls have been turned into musicals and small-screen gems such as The Office and Scrubs are blowing up on Netflix and the like.