This is about more than just Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez getting back together. It’s a way to kid yourself that the past 20 years haven’t happened
It’s OK everyone, you can all stop crying into your toast, anxiously waiting to see if I’m back. Because I am! That’s right, after a month away, I’ve returned, and what a month it’s been. “Say, Hadley, how did you spend your incredible four weeks off work? Did you go sailing through the Balearics? Hire a villa in Tuscany? Go rock diving in Portofino?” asks no one. And the answer, no one, is no, I did not. I spent the entire month sitting right here, at my desk, writing a book about mental illness. Do I know how to carpe the hell outta my diem or what?
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, surprisingly, have different ideas about how best to spend the summer. By now you know, your mum knows, even Trappist monks know that Affleck and Lopez – better known as Bennifer, the original celebrity portmanteau – are back together. Over the past month, they have been offering the world glimpses into their passionate reunion on what is now routinely described as their “$130m super vessel.” (Factchecking has confirmed this is a yacht and not Lopez’s nickname for Affleck. Boom boom tish! Missed me much?) Not since Diana, Princess of Wales, lounged on the al-Fayed yacht has a mega-celebrity put on such a show for the world’s press while on deck. Highlights included Affleck stroking Lopez’s backside while sunbathing, which all scholars of early 2000s pop culture will instantly recognise as a reference to Affleck doing the same to Lopez in the Urtext of backside stroking, the music video for Lopez’s seminal single, Jenny From The Block. We’ve seen photos of them making out on the boat ; making out in a restaurant ; making out on Instagram . For a couple who allegedly broke off their engagement in 2004 due to “excessive media attention”, they have proven to be remarkably happy to court said attention again. Well, live and learn, or, in the case of Affleck and Lopez, live.