Ben Affleck and JLo got matching Valentine’s Day tattoos… topping last year’s gift

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez rekindled their romance two summers ago and it’s been a steady stream of pap pics, PDA and “power couple!” headlines ever since. People long had their suspicions that a noughties resurgence was on the way, but Bennifer’s recoupling all but confirmed it. They were the it-duo of the early aughts, after all.

Tying the knot and making it official last July, the couple recently celebrated their first Valentine’s Day together as a married couple… an occasion they celebrated with matching tattoos. 

While the designs of the his and hers tattoos vary slightly, each includes the name or initial of the other and was supposedly gotten as a symbol of their commitment to the relationship. Lopez went with a red ink infinity symbol with an arrow going through it (very Cupid) on her left rib. Her name is at the bottom of the loop, while Ben’s is at the top. 

Affleck went with a coordinating design – his in black ink with two crisscrossing arrows tied together with a string and the letters J and B between them. 

While we still don’t know whose idea the tattoos were, Ben does kind of have a history of grand gestures – particularly where JLo is concerned. Take his Valentine’s Day gift to Jen last year as an example. Forgoing the traditional flowers or chocolates in favour of something more personal, Ben went heavy on the nostalgia and made Lopez a four-minute-long video montage of their best moments. No, I’m not joking. 

Borrowing footage from a mishmash of different sources, the finished product was as much an ode to the early 2000s as it was their relationship and included clips from such cultural touch points as the “Jenny From The Block” music video, Gigli – the film that originally introduced them to each other, and even a few outtakes of Affleck and his other love, Matt Damon, back when they filmed filming Good Will Hunting together in the late 90s. 

Clearly putting his extensive filmmaking experience to good use, the tribute video was also set to the tune of JLo’s song “On My Way” and even had some kitschy edits and suave transitions added in for extra enjoyment. 

How did we manage to get our hands on the special gift? Seems JLo was apparently so impressed that she decided to share it with, well, everyone. “I am going to share something very special and personal with you that normally I would only share with my inner circle,” she wrote in her newsletter at the time.

“It’s an early Valentine’s Day present from Ben. Watching it made me think about the journey of true love, its unexpected twists and turns, and that when it’s real, it actually can last forever,” she continued, before adding, “This seriously melted my heart.”

Way back in 2002, he caused similar kerfuffle when he took out a series of half-page ads to tell the world how much he loved working with Lopez, his then-colleague. Seems he hasn’t updated his schmoozing skills since he first set his sights on her all those years ago.

At the time, Ben said the move was to counter emerging comments that Jennifer Lopez was a diva, but seriously, who spends $15,000 to fix someone’s reputation unless they have their eyes on a different prize?  A few weeks later, Bennifer was born.

A couple of summers ago, his questionable (albeit effective?) flirting techniques struck again when he began wooing Jen after an almost two-decade-long breakup. According to TMZ, the newly re-minted pairing hadn’t come as out-of-the-blue as fans might have thought and Ben had seemingly been courting his former fiancé (and then-fiancé to Alex Rodriguez) via email. Yes, email, the sexiest of all communications. Guess, we really are back in 2002.

Not the rebound fling we all presumed it to be, Ben had apparently been laying the groundwork for months already, with the first correspondence sent as far back as February (their relationship was subsequently “confirmed” in May). 

JLo was in the Dominican Republic to film the movie Shotgun Wedding at the time and TMZ reports that Affleck supposedly saw photos of his ex, and recently single himself, decided to email her to tell her “how beautiful she looked and how much he wished he could be down there with her”.

An onslaught of mushy-gushy emails ensued, one particular one proclaiming Affleck’s unwavering confidence that he could “own” JLo’s heart “with his pen”. If that makes you uncomfortable, you’re not alone… he’d probably give Ross Gellar a run for his money with those techniques. 

I guess famous people are just as hopeless and awkward and desperate for love as the rest of us.