Sophia Michaels
The 2023 Grammys began with an unusually smooth start. Bad Bunny opened the show, getting everyone on their feet at the very beginning of an incredibly long night. The crowd seemed to be buzzing, especially at the front tables where music’s biggest stars were sitting, cheering on their peers. But in the midst of the celebrity fanfare, there was one figure who seemed to be over the event before it had even really started: a Dunkin-less Ben Affleck seated beside his wife, Jennifer Lopez.
Lopez attended the event to present the first award of the night, Best Pop Vocal Album, to Harry Styles for Harry’s House. Following her segment, she returned to her table with Affleck, where they were seated next to Dwayne Johnson and his wife, Lauren Hashian. At that moment, the actor must have realized that his wife presenting the first award of the night after one performance meant he had to be there for the rest of the awards and the rest of the performances.
“Ben Affleck is every husband dragged to a work thing by his wife,” one Twitter user declared as stills of Affleck looking particularly ready to leave made their way around social media. Another added: “Ben Affleck looks like he was dragged along to girls night and told to stay off his phone.”
Affleck, like the rest of us, was probably already over the post-Grammy Awards discourse we all have to endure for the next 72 hours, minimum. Even with his introvert battery drained to one percent, at least he had a choice between making the rounds at industry parties for the rest of the night or heading straight home. Meanwhile, the rest of us were trapped in Twitter purgatory, where people pretended not to understand why Beyoncé deserved to have won Album of the Year.
Nothing makes a case for the “Celebrities, they’re just like us” argument more than Affleck appearing to be on the verge of tears the entire night, and for that, we thank him.
