The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has taken over social media as of late. Everyone is talking about the show and the drama that has been revealed from it. There is, of course, the constant Whitney Leavitt drama, and the general debate over how the women represent Mormonism and go against the usual constructs of the religion. But one of the earliest reveals of the show was that Jen and her husband Zac are related to Ben Affleck. It became a running gag throughout the season that every time Jen was on-screen, her card would show both her first and last name, in comparison to the rest of the women who only had their first name shown. So every single time Jen showed up on screen it read “Jen Affleck,” a funny little nod to her supposed relation to mega-star Ben Affleck. But ever since she spilled her superstar genealogy, viewers have been wondering if there’s any truth to it. So what’s the deal?
In the premiere episode of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Jen joked that she’s the original Jennifer Affleck. “Especially because my name happens to be not only Jen, but Jennifer Lynn Affleck, which is the exact same as JLo.” She explained. “She went from Jennifer Lynn Lopez to Jennifer Lynn Affleck, which is so crazy.” But what’s crazier is that there is an actual connection between Jen and the Affleck’s thanks to her husband Zac.
In an interview with People, Jen confirmed the relation to the Afflecks, saying that Ben Affleck is her husband’s second cousin. Her father-in-law, Dave, is Ben and Casey Affleck’s first cousin, and reportedly met Ben when the star was young. Unfortunately though, neither Jen nor her husband have met the A-listers, and she says that they are more like distant cousins to them. “I’m hoping to meet him one day, too!” Jen said of Ben. “Hopefully they’ll tune in, and hopefully we can do a meet and greet. They can tell me how the show is.”
While Jen often leans into the Affleck relation — making TikTok’s to “Jenny From the Block” and even joking that JLo stole her name — not all viewers were so quick to take her claims at face value. Reddit posts quickly began to form of sleuths digging into the genealogy of Zac and his family, and potentially revealing that there isn’t a relation to the Afflecks after all. At least, not the Hollywood Afflecks, that is. A Redditor did a deep dive on genealogy websites and concluded that, based on the claim that Zac’s dad is Ben Affleck’s first cousin, Zac’s grandfather, Gordon, and Ben’s dad, Timothy, would be brothers. But following this theory revealed that all of Ben’s genealogy comes from the East Coast, whereas Zac’s genealogy primarily comes from Utah. On top of that, Ben’s father, Timothy, only has one sibling, and it’s not Gordon, which kind of plateaus the entire relation right there.
We may never know for sure whether Jen and Zac are related to Ben Affleck, as it seems the genealogy can get quite messy if you try and figure it out on your own. The only way we’ll know for sure is if some sort of record were to come out and prove it, or if Ben Affleck himself confirms the relation; he may not have met them, but surely he’d know if he’s related to them, or be able to find out easily enough. Nonetheless, the Affleck name made for a hilarious running gag throughout the season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, so whether it’s true or not that Jen and Zac are related to the Hollywood Afflecks, we’ll at least always be able to get a good chuckle from the constant name-drops throughout the season.
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
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