Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez Engagement Looms as Couple Reportedly ‘Madly in Love’

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are still “madly in love” and heading toward engagement, a source close to the couple tells Entertainment Tonight. The Marry Me actress and Tender Bar star faced controversy in December after Affleck’s comments to Howard Stern about feeling “trapped” in his previous marriage to Jennifer Garner, but have managed to move on from the whole issue. 

“Jen and Ben are doing great. Ben’s interview with Howard Stern didn’t really put too much of a strain on their relationship. They understand that things like this happen sometimes, and words can get misconstrued,” the insider said of the pair, who rekindled their romance in 2021 after breaking off their first engagement in 2004.

“They are madly in love and Jen totally has Ben’s back, which is why she wanted to make her support and stance known publicly,” they continued. “Things between their children are pretty organic at this point. The families respect each other and also get along, so things are all good and fine on that front. Their friends think they will get engaged eventually and it’s only a matter of time.”

Affleck, who shares 16-year-old daughter Violet, 13-year-old daughter Seraphina and 9-year-old son Samuel with Garner, came under fire late last year for what he said about the end of his marriage to the Alias star on Stern’s SiriusXM show. “I was trapped. You know, I was like, I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy. What do I do? And what I did was like, drink a bottle of Scotch and fall asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution,” he explained.

The actor later defended his comments on Jimmy Kimmel Live, saying they were taken out of context. “I had gone on about how much we respected each other and how we cared about each other and cared about our kids and put them first,” he said at the time. “And went through our stuff. And they said that I had blamed my ex-wife for my alcoholism and that I was trapped in this marriage and just made me out to be the worst, most insensitive, stupid, awful guy.”

Despite reports that Lopez was unhappy with her beau because of what he said, the Second Act star insisted in a statement to PEOPLE at the time that it was “simply not true.” While the couple has kept things significantly more low-key in the weeks since then, Lopez showed her affection toward her man earlier this week, rocking a necklace reading “Ben” on Instagram Wednesday.