J.Lo, Ben Affleck Got Married at His ‘Imitation Plantation’ Mansion and Fans Have Questions
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez tied the knot for a second time on Saturday at his mansion in Riceboro, Georgia. While it may have seemed like the perfect follow-up to their initial top-secret wedding at Las Vegas’s Little White Chapel, the Georgia home’s “plantation-style” architecture is coming under serious fire.
As reported by Page Six, Affleck and Lopez opted for a three-day wedding celebration that began with a rehearsal dinner on Friday, followed up by the wedding on Saturday and a barbecue on Sunday. Guests like Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel reportedly attended, while the $8.9 million mansion was decked to the nines by staff.
While it all sounds magical enough, the site of the A-list couple’s wedding actually has a horrifying history.
While the Georgia home was not a plantation in itself, it was constructed in 2000 by architect James Strickland to look like a plantation (which may be just as troubling). The estate includes a deep water port, a 6,000 square-foot “big house,” a 10,000 square-foot guest house and horse stables.
Even worse? According to The Cut, Affleck’s Southern mansion is built on land owned by a slave owner and plantation manager named Roswell King. The home also resides on an unmarked graveyard for slaves, and was purposefully created to bring back memories of the former rice plantation that existed before its construction.
It seems like Lopez and Affleck possibly thought the decision to get married at the Georgia estate was romantic, since the “Gone Girl” actor bought it in 2003, when they got engaged the first time around. The couple also reportedly planned to get married at the estate back then, but there’s no doubt it was always a horrible decision.
Even more, Affleck was the subject of another controversy back in 2015, after the show “Finding Your Roots” uncovered that his great-great-great-grandfather Benjamin Cole owned slaves. To add insult to injury, Affleck ordered the show to leave out that segment, and the public only found out because his emails got leaked.
As a Northwestern University history professor told Page Six, “When [Affleck] discovered who his ancestors were he tried to squelch it… It’s clear he didn’t learn his lesson. We’re back at the same place with him.”
As you can expect, fans on social media are equally disheartened by the celeb couple’s decision to get married in a plantation. One Twitter user wrote, “I’m sorry, but WHY are Ben Affleck & JLo having a PLANTATION wedding in 2022?” while another agreed, “Jlo and Ben Affleck literally got married on plantation and that doesn’t get talked about enough for me the sh*t is weird I’m sorry.”
Some people were simply at a loss for words, like one user that wrote: “Not Jlo and Ben Affleck getting married on his ancestors old slave plantation?????” Others went for sarcasm, all the while questioning why anyone would want to “evoke the ‘feel’ of slavery.”
