“What is it that draws Ben Affleck back to his old flames?” asks Sophia Money-Coutts in The Daily Telegraph. After a 17-year break, the Oscar-winning star seems to be back with his former fiancée Jennifer Lopez. “Bennifer” were Hollywood’s hottest couple in the early Noughties, after they met while filming the notorious flop Gigli. This isn’t the first time “Boomerang Ben” has hooked up with an ex. He has also rekindled romances with Gwyneth Paltrow, TV producer Lindsay Shookus and, at least according to rumour, his ex-wife Jennifer Garner.
Affleck is not the only one to succumb to “ex appeal”. Plenty of us have found ourselves fantasising about “the one that got away” during lockdown, and sometimes even texting them. But is hooking up with an ex a good idea? If you’ve met the right person at the wrong time, years later it might well work out. Still, those giving it a shot must talk honestly about “why it didn’t work the first time”. If, like Affleck, you can “rustle up” a private jet and fly your ex to a chalet, that might help too.