NEWSPart Of The Plot! Ralph Fiennes Admits He Was A 'Relationship Decoy' During Jennifer Lopez & Ben Affleck's Early 2000s Romance
The truth tends to have a way of coming out — even if it’s two decades later!
Ralph Fiennes exposed Jennifer Lopez’s team 20 years after they allegedly tricked him into standing in as a “relationship decoy” to pry the press away from her real romance with Ben Affleck in the early 2000s.
“I was set up,” The King’s Man actor, 59, revealed during his Tuesday, November 15, appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.
Fiennes offer more details on the time he was convinced to go out to dinner with his Maid in Manhattan costar at the time, Lopez, and was incidentally caught on camera as the duo exchanged a seemingly intimate gesture.
“I was asked out to dinner with J. Lo and her manager and her agent … We had a nice dinner, chatty chatty chatty … [Afterward], I think I was walking home, but [we gave each other a] peck on the cheek goodnight,” Fiennes stated of the evening back in June 2002.
As the night neared its end, “a paparazzi — just one — pops out” and quickly captured photos of the two before releasing them to the press. “But somehow, the pictures were angled so that as she’s walking away, [it looks like] I’m walking after her. And I think it said the next day in the Post, ‘It’s Ralph!'”
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Although Fiennes may have appreciated some honesty about Lopez’s dinner date intentions, he concluded his flashback with a nod of approval.
“My reaction [when I learned they Lopez and Affleck got back together] was, ‘Good luck to them,'” The Grand Budapest Hotel star expressed.
Despite the Gigli costars parting ways in November 2002, Affleck, 50, popped the question for a second time this past April and officially tied the knot with Lopez, 53, during a small Las Vegas ceremony July — and followed up their nuptials with a weekend-long lavish celebration in Georgia in August.
Since rekindling their romance, Lopez and the Gone Girl star have been more in love than ever — so much so, the legendary "On the Floor" singer legally took her husband's last name.
"People are still going to call me Jennifer Lopez. But my legal name will be Mrs. Affleck because we're joined together. We're husband and wife," she revealed in a recent interview with Vogue. "I'm proud of that."
"It feels like it's a power move, you know what I mean? I'm very much in control of my own life and destiny and feel empowered as a woman and as a person," Lopez confessed. "But if you want to know how I feel about it, I just feel like it's romantic. It still carries tradition and romance to me, and maybe I'm just that kind of girl."
