California divorce laws are pretty black and white.
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Following months of rumors, it’s been confirmed that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have divorced after two years of marriage. Adding insult to injury, Lopez filed the paperwork on the day that would’ve been the second anniversary of their wedding on Ben’s estate in Georgia.
The crazy thing is, this very high-profile couple reportedly did not have a prenup, per TMZ, meaning their collective net worths and assets are up for grabs in a 50-50 split, per California state divorce law. They did, however, have a “no-cheating clause” in their arrangement in 2003 when they got engaged for the first time.
“The prenuptial agreement is to protect both their assets and says that if they do split they keep their own money, except if Ben cheats,” the source told the Daily Mail at the time. “Then the prenuptial becomes void. That means that the divorce will be done the normal Californian way—with Jennifer being entitled to up to half of Ben’s earnings.”
This time around, Leigh Baseheart Kahn, a partner at Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas LLP, observed to StyleCaster that “this is sort of the equivalent of a business deal … Each of their respective lawyers can speak to their clients and play a sort of shuttle diplomacy. It’s just finances.”
Jennifer Lopez’s net worth compared to Ben Affleck’s
Jennifer Lopez’s net worth
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Jennifer Lopez’s fortune is around $400 million, with an approximate $40 million per annual earnings. She has varied sources of income, too. There’s her movie career; skincare line, JLo Beauty; alcohol brand, Delola; and of course, her music career (although that seemed to be suffering recently with the cancellation of her This Is Me … Live tour).
Ben Affleck’s net worth
Ben Affleck’s net worth, meanwhile, is around $150 million, per Celebrity Net Worth. Most of his income has come from film—he and Matt Damon each received $300,000 for selling the Good Will Hunting screenplay that would win them Oscars in 1998. Perhaps most notably, however, Affleck became the face of Dunkin Donuts, for which he was paid a reported $10 million for a 30-second slot at the 2023 Super Bowl.
Their earnings since marriage
In 2023, Affleck scored ninth place on Forbes‘ Highest Paid Actors list of 2023 with $38 million, starring as Nike exec Phil Knight in Air, but he also directed and produced the movie, which raked in more than $90 million globally.
J-Lo, for her part, starred in Shotgun Wedding, The Mother, This Is Me … Now, and Atlas during their marriage—the latter of which she earned $16.5 million paycheck. Though, it’s important to note she sunk $20 million of her own money to fund This Is Me… Now.
Their shared assets
Their largest joint investment was their marital home in Beverly Hills, dropping a whopping $60 million in cash on a 12-bedroom, 24-bathroom property, which they owned for less than a year. They reportedly spent months house-hunting, and years of going in and out of escrow on multiple properties, before they settled on this 38,000-square-foot behemoth.
