2024 seems to be the year of the celebrity break-up: Cardi B and Offset, Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher – even Love Island’s Tommy Fury and Molly-Mae Hague called it quits this month, but the news that JLo and Ben Affleck are to divorce has arguable made more headlines than all the other break-ups put together.

It is not uncommon for people to re-kindle romances even after a 17 year gap, as with Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, but post-marriage, it’s also not unusual for the parties involved to discover they are actually very different people from the time they first got together, or it may be that the issues that drove them apart in the first place are still there: in either scenario, considerable strain is put on the marriage. Also, it’s not that rare in what might be termed Hollywood relationships. For example, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton married in 1964, divorced a decade later, married again in 1975 and divorced in 1976. Pamela Anderson married Rick Salomon in 2007, requested an annulment in 2008, remarried him in 2014 and filed for divorce in 2015. Legendary singer Dionne Warwick married William Elliott in 1966, divorced him a year later, they got back together almost immediately and then divorced again in 19752.

Lopez, 55, and Affleck, 52, first met on the set of their romcom Gigli in about 2001, before announcing their engagement the following year. Their planned 2003 wedding was postponed, and in 2004 they split up. In 2022 they married again, with Lopez saying “Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient.”

Lopez has been married four times, Affleck has been married twice.

There is said to be no prenup although that is unconfirmed, but with regard to finances, if this case was before the English family courts, factors such as both parties being independently wealthy, the fact that they have no children together and the brevity of their two-year marriage would be taken into account in the division of the assets.

Where there is a short marriage, and where both parties have brought considerable wealth to the table, the simplest and most cost-effective solution would be for each party to agree to exit the marriage with what they brought into it. However, Hollywood divorces are rarely that simple; mega wealth can often mean complex financial arrangements and expectations which can be difficult to untangle. The personalities of the people involved also play a part in how the divorce can play out in the courts.

There are complex emotions behind every divorce, which no amount of celebrity status or wealth can overcome.