Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck aren’t letting their ongoing divorce stop them from celebrating the holiday season together.
The exes reunited to exchange Christmas gifts at the members-only social club Soho House in West Hollywood on Sunday, December 22. In photos obtained by the Daily Mail, Lopez, 55, channeled the winter season by sporting a patterned, oversized knit cardigan, wide-leg jeans and hoop earrings for the lunch outing.
Affleck — who donned a blue top with jeans, a black peacoat and sneakers — was photographed carrying a black tote bag seemingly filled with festive presents.
That same day, Lopez shared a sweet Instagram Story video of her 16-year-old child Emme singing along to Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and a Beat” in the car with family. “When all the Kids Get Together For the Holidays,” she captioned the clip. She tagged her sister Lynda in the video, as well as pals Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Michelle Chiaravalle. (Lopez shares twins Emme and Max, 16, with her ex-husband Marc Anthony.)
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Affleck’s reunion with his former spouse comes four months after she filed to end their two-year marriage. In her divorce docs, Lopez listed their date of separation as April 26 and cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for their split.
Lopez filed for divorce on the second anniversary of the pair’s Georgia wedding ceremony. She and Affleck, 52, initially said “I do” in Las Vegas in July 2022 before holding a second celebration with friends and family one month later.
In August, a source exclusively told Us Weekly that the pair’s split was “planned” and that they “had gone through all the details” for their separation before Lopez’s filing. “J.Lo finally pulled the trigger because that was their agreement that she would file, and she was the one who ultimately made the decision,” the insider explained.
A second source later told Us that Lopez and Affleck called it quits after it became “more and more apparent they weren’t a good match,” adding, “It boiled down to [the fact that] they are two different people.”
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Lopez and Affleck have been publicly spotted together several times since their split. Earlier this month, Lopez joined Affleck and his ex-wife Jennifer Garner at a play put on by their kids. (Affleck and Garner, 52, share kids Violet, 19, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12.)
Despite continuing to support their blended family, Lopez and Affleck aren’t planning to get back together. “There’s still a lot of love between them, but the divorce is still going forward,” another source exclusively told Us in September.
The insider went on to note: “When they’re together as a family and see the kids together, it reminds them of how good they are as a team and what’s important.”
With controversy surrounding their relationship continuing to build, Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter and his fiancée, Leanna Lenee, have both excused themselves from the narrative.
Hunter, 21, a two-way star for the University of Colorado, and Lenee, 23, both deactivated their Instagram and TikTok accounts over the weekend. The Twitch channel belonging to Hunter, where he routinely live streams, is still active.
The pair made the decision to cut the cord on social media in the face of growing debate about their pending marriage.
Conversation shifted into overdrive at the Heisman Trophy ceremony on December 14 — where Hunter was recognized as the best player in college football — when viewers at home criticized Lenee for not standing up when Hunter’s name was called.
Heisman Winner Travis Hunter and Fiancee Leanna’s Relationship Timeline
Videos from Heisman weekend also circulated showing Lenee allegedly getting upset at Hunter, with fans believing it was over him not paying enough attention to her at an Adidas pop-up shop.
On Monday, December 16, Lenee took to her now-deactivated TikTok account to address the multiple controversies.
“The things that I see people make up is truly crazy, because it’s not what happened,” Lenee said in the video. “I just think people are finding every single little thing and trying to make it something it’s not. Bird brain individuals are just accepting what they see online.”
Lenee attempted to explain her behavior at the Heisman ceremony, simply stating that she wasn’t quite sure how to act appropriately.
“This is making me so mad because anyone who knows me knows I support Travis in every win, everything he does,” Lenee said. “Because I truly, truly love that man. He is perfect in my eyes.”
She continued, “When his name was called, if you watch the video, you can see me [start to stand], but his mom didn’t get up. So I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I don’t get up. Maybe I just sit here with her.’ So I sat there.”
Lenee also denied that she and Hunter had any sort of heated discussion at the pop-up shop.
Elsewhere in the video, Lenee pushed back against the claim that Hunter was in a relationship when the two started dating.
“I don’t do home-wrecking,” she said. “I’m not a side piece. I don’t stand for any of those things. I support women. I would never do that to another woman because I would never want it done to me.”
In fact, Lenee revealed she actually let Hunter’s initial correspondence with her sit unanswered for months because of his relationship status at the time.
“Travis, when he first ever DM’d me — when we first met, I said I left him in my DMs for two months and people said, ‘Oh, she left him in DMs until she figured out who he was.’ That is not true at all,” Lenee said. “The real reason Travis sat in my DMs for two months is because he DM’d me when he had a girlfriend.”
Lenee continued, “I instantly knew he had a partner. So, I exited the message and he sat there until he was single.”
In the seven-minute TikTok video, Lenee also turned her attention to a previous comment she made about Hunter not being her “type.”
“I did not mean attractiveness,” Lenee said in the TikTok video. “I don’t have a physical type, period. No two men that I’ve previously dated look the same. My first one was a white cowboy. Second one was a Mexican soccer player. And then I dated a Black man who’s a SoundCloud rapper.”
Lenee continued, “I have never dated the same type physically. I don’t care about what people look like or what they can give me. I date people for who they are as a person, how they honor God and how they treat the people around them.”
Hunter, who is widely expected to be one of the top 5 picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, and Lenee made their relationship Instagram official in February 2022 and got engaged two years later.
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After Heisman weekend, Hunter took to Twitch and revealed that Lenee had cried herself to sleep following the backlash.
“Y’all hate on me and then y’all go and hate on my girl,” Hunter said on December 15. “Bro, I feel the same thing that she feels. We’re inseparable, bro. We’re with each other. If she’s hurting, of course I’m going to be hurting. If I’m hurting, of course she’s going to be hurting.”
The couple received the support of Colorado quarterback, Shedeur Sanders, who criticized other athletes and celebrities for taking about Hunter in public.
“All y’all athletes, entertainers, artist etc if y’all genuine trying to holla at trav y’all know how to get in touch with him or someone around,” Sanders, 22, wrote via X on Sunday, December 22. “At this point y’all just posting for the algorithm trying to look cool.”
Alix Earle is asking the important questions.
Earle, 24, took to TikTok on Sunday, December 22, to ask her followers if she should have been using Pantene shampoo and conditioner all along, despite the infamous rumor that the product coats hair with wax and weighs it down, or makes it appear greasy.
“This might be crazy of me to say, but how come when I come home and I use my expired Pantene shampoo and conditioner, my hair feels softer than it’s ever felt?” she asked, showing off how shiny and smooth her tresses looked.
“I’m starting to think, maybe I need to switch back,” Earle continued. “I used to bleach the hair off my head and it was down to here,” she added, gesturing to her hips.
Alix Earle Gives a Realistic Look at Her Hair After Night Out During NYFW
The influencer then pulled up a picture of her in high school, proving how long and healthy her mane was.
“That is no extensions, that is somehow my real hair,” Earle exclaimed. “So is it a myth that [Pantene] was bad for [your hair] or what?”
“Seeing my hair that long and healthy makes me sick,” she captioned the post. “I’d do anything.”
Fans agreed with Earle in the comments section, praising the drug store brand for keeping their locks healthy as well. “Expensive shampoos are a scam,” one follower claimed.
A second wrote, “I’m a hairdresser and I don’t believe in expensive hair products.”
More fans suggested that the nice water in Earle’s New Jersey house might be better than the tap in Miami, where Earle currently lives. “It’s the water. The water in Jersey is way better than the water in Miami,” the social media user commented. “My hair does the same.”
Alix Earle Shares Her New Go-to Product to Conceal Acne Breakouts
According to Pantene’s website, the shampoo and conditioner does not coat or weigh down your hair. “As a Pantene scientist, I’m often asked if Pantene is good for hair,” the site reads. “I have zero doubt that it is. I know from the many product test results and from my personal experience of using Pantene on my own hair that the products make hair more manageable, softer, and stronger. They are especially good for repairing hair that has been damaged by coloring, heat-styling, and normal daily life to look and feel healthy.”
The scientist added: “The formulas contain pro-vitamin B5, strengthening lipids and protective antioxidants that work from the inside-out to improve hair’s health.”
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The film is set to feature an all-star cast including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson
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Officers found 82 fireworks in a woman’s carry on baggage
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Each year, on the first Saturday of December, our town hosts its annual holiday light-up night to kick off the festive season. Our quaint main street is packed with vendors, goodies, local musicians, and reindeer games. Local businesses sling seasonal cocktails for the grownups and set up craft stations for the kids. The town kicks off the evening by welcoming Santa and Mrs. Claus to the town center where everybody cheers as the massive Christmas tree comes to life with thousands of twinkling lights. If I'm being honest, it's a scene straight out of a holiday movie.
My husband and I have been attending this event for a decade, ever since we relocated to the tiny Pittsburgh borough of Bellevue with infant twins and a toddler in tow. Since our first light-up night, the event has grown substantially — and so has our family. I'll admit it hasn't always been easy helping four kids navigate a main drag packed with a couple of thousand neighbors, but we trudge the two blocks to the center of town religiously every year. It's a chance to hug neighbors, let the kids run free, and celebrate the loving community we are so thankful to be a part of.
I often hear other moms bemoan the "loss of the village," and the way modern motherhood can feel insular and lonely. This is true on many levels. Shifts in the fabric of American society have left today's mothers with less support than our moms had, and the 24-hour news cycle has left even more mothers fearful of leaning on their community.
Thankfully, that has not been our experience. While I would like to say we magically found our "village," the truth is that sometimes we have to create one.
It's not easy to lean on neighbors (or strangers), but I've learned over our decade in this little town that people are willing to look out for each other, if you open up your heart and let them.
A few years ago, we briefly lost our youngest child at this very same holiday event. While those moments when she wasn't in our eyesight were terrifying, I knew in my gut during those frantic moments that the adults in our town were looking out for her. As a neighbor I barely knew hoisted my kiddo above the crowd so I could find her, I teared up. This community we are a part of looks out for one another.
Our kids are older now; 13, 11 (twins), and 6. We've given our big three more independence in our walkable town throughout the year. With kid-safe cell phones in hand and kid-friendly debit cards at their fingertips, we trusted our village enough to set them loose on the main street once that giant evergreen was shining brightly at the center of town. While my 13-year-old and one of my 11-year-old twins spent some time with us throughout the evening, our son Ezra disappeared into the festive fray almost immediately. I wasn't surprised. He's extroverted and confident and has never met a festival he didn't love.
For many parents, not seeing their fifth grader for two hours on a dark and chilly evening may induce panic, but this village we've built and come to rely on gave us the confidence to let him test his wings. The location dot on his cell phone let us know he was still at the event, and a few spending notifications told us he was well hydrated and warm, thanks to a pair of LED gloves he purchased from a street vendor.
We heard snippets about Ezra's evening from others. Our town librarian heard the DJ say his name at one point, and another friend let us know he helped pass out raffle baskets to the winners at the end of the evening. A fellow parent let me know she told his friend group to move their horseplay away from some younger kids, and they readily complied. I thanked her for being willing to offer guidance when I didn't have eyes on him. "Sure," she said. "I would want you to do the same if you saw my kid being a knucklehead, too." We laughed, but I know she means it.
Once the festivities had concluded, Ezra sent us a text asking if he could help the adults in charge clean up the event. We often say his big personality is paired with an even bigger heart. Of course we said yes.
Once he finally burst through our front door at the end of the evening, brought home by a friend's older cousin, he was cold and exhausted. It was after 10 p.m. and he crashed quickly into bed. I asked him how his night went since we had not seen him for over two hours. "It was fun," he said. "I think I did everything they had to do." Within minutes, he was out cold.
A few days later, a local photographer shared a photo album from the festivities. Within an hour I had a dozen text messages telling me to take a look. I opened the link and gasped. There was Ezra, on stage, holding a tambourine. The thousand-watt smile on his face says it all. He had the best night. I have never seen a photo that better encapsulates my son.
Modern parenting is designed to provoke anxiety. From online urban legends and hysteria to a general lack of trust in our neighbors, it's easy to give into the temptation to clip our kids' wings and worry about how the world may harm them.
I know the world is scary. I worry every day about my kids' safety. I worry about gun violence, online bullying, and the general divisiveness and hatred that seems to permeate today's culture. Rather than give into the temptation to shelter them at home, though, I've found strength in leaning on our community and working hard to foster independence in our kids. With a bit of help from modern technology and a whole lot of help from trusted adults, teaching our kids to navigate the world on their own feels like the best possible tool we can give them.
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