Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s friendship is a rare and enduring bond in the cutthroat entertainment industry. They have supported each other through personal and professional highs and lows. However, Matt Damon once admitted in an interview that his close friend Ben Affleck’s relationship and brief engagement to singer-actor Jennifer Lopez between 2002 to 2004 affected his career significantly.
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Damon outlined the excessive paparazzi glare on the couple and how this amounted to a negative form of publicity for Affleck’s professional career. Every move was tracked, analyzed, and judged, which made the process of marketing the star’s movies difficult. Damon said, “If you end up in their crosshairs, you’re really f*ked. Because there is an absolute relationship between how f**ked you are, if you’re on the cover of their magazines, and what happens to you as an actor. I mean, nobody knows that more than Ben.”
However, Damon also credited his friend for being committed to the relationship despite not enjoying a private life. He stated that Affleck entered the romance for the right reasons with the intention of making it work for the long haul.
Matt Damon Stays Away From “Bennifer” Talk
After a history of courtship, engagement, and breakup, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez surprised everyone by rekindling their romance all over again in 2021. This time the two stars took the next big step to get married. Affleck’s close friend Matt Damon expressed his happiness at Lopez and Affleck getting back together. However, he also firmly maintained that he would refrain from commenting on their relationship in public.
Damon added that, in order to protect his professional and personal relationship with Affleck and in turn Affleck’s union with Lopez, it was important to maintain a dignified distance from the paparazzi and the tabloids.
