Dating Jennifer Lopez was bad for Ben Affleck's career, according to the
Hollywood star himself.
Affleck and Lopez's romance hit the headlines between 2002 and 2004,
and the couple was engaged when they split.
Both blamed excessive tabloid coverage for the separation.
And Affleck, who now has a daughter with girlfriend Jennifer
Garner, believes the unwanted media attention surrounding his romance
with Lopez resulted in studio executives taking him less seriously in
Hollywood.
He tells American magazine Details, "It was probably bad for my
career. What happens is this sort of bleeds over from the tabloids across
your movie work.
"You go to a movie, you only go once. But the tabloids and
internet are everywhere. You can really subsume the public image of
somebody.
"I ended up in an unfortunate crosshair position where I was in a
relationship and (the media) mostly lied and inflated a bunch of salacious
stuff for the sake of selling magazines. And I paid a certain price for
that."