Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez said, "When we found ourselves seriously contemplating hiring three separate 'decoy brides' at three different locations, we realized that something was awry..."

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There was also the fact that she was still processing the end of her marriage. 

She said, "When Chris and I started dating, my husband and I had only been separated for a couple of months. Even though we had an amicable divorce, I think that's still something that you need to mourn. When you get separated from somebody that you actually care about, it is the destruction of a belief system. That is really, really sad. I just didn't have the tools. And I didn't think very hard about that, to be honest. I wanted to step into the light. Chris is a sunny, loving, really fun person, and I didn't really understand why I should be prudent.

... We’re not on bad terms, but we haven't really seen each other, spoken a lot. I think it's probably best. I'd love to be his friend one day, but we threw down pretty hard. No regrets, though. Ever."

Chris later told USA Today, "You know, relationships are tricky, there are [a] lot of moving pieces. But I am endlessly grateful for having met her. She will be in my life always. ... We were both rooting for this. She's an incredible human being, a very, very special person. We're all lucky she's so driven; she's going to make some amazing art in her life."

Karina offered fans her "sincerest apologies" and promised to "show more maturity and work harder going forward to all [her fans] without disappointment."

Many fans came out in his and Karina's defense, speaking out against rules and expectations that prevent many K-pop idols from publicly dating.

"From now on, please refrain from slander, unauthorized interviewing, reporting, or any other disturbing behavior toward my partner, who is a civilian, their relatives, and associates, as well as my relatives and associates," he said.

"The narratives that are out there altogether have been extrapolated from pictures that were taken without consent or permission, with no context. Nobody had the context for that story. And I'm still trying to work out a way of having a personal life and protecting it, but also without hiding. So the hardest thing is that that was a joke among friends on the Fourth of July. ... I just, I was surprised. I was just surprised that it got so much attention. The tank top became an emblem of this thing," he said.

"As everyone knows, we together — both of us, mutually — decided to keep the more private details of our relationship private. It was never something to commodify, and I see no reason to change that now," he said.

However, they ultimately weren't meant to be. Jennifer filed for divorce in 2024, and it was finalized a year later. She told CBS Sunday Mornings, "Honestly, I have to say it was the best thing that ever happened to me because it changed me. It helped me grow in a way that I needed to grow [and] become more self-aware. I'm a different person now than I was last year."

Discussing his participation in The Greatest Love Story Never Told, Ben told GQ, "Part of it was, 'OK, if I'm going to participate in this, I want to try to do it in an honest way and in a way that's interesting.' Because I thought it was an interesting examination. Like I mentioned to you before, there are a lot of people who I think have handled celebrity more adeptly and more adroitly than I have, Jennifer among them. 

My temperament is to be a little bit more reserved and private than hers. As happens in relationships, you don't always have the same attitude towards these things. And so I thought, Oh, this is interesting because how do you reconcile that? Because exactly what [the interviewer] said is true. I love and support this person. I believe in them. They're great. I want people to see that. 

And I think the thing that I said in that documentary or the piece that they used was where I said, You don't marry a ship's captain and then say, 'Well, I don't like going out in the water.' You've got to own what you knew going into any relationship. And I think it's important to say that wasn’t the cause of some major fracture. It's not like you can watch that documentary and go, 'Oh, now I understand the issues that these two had.'"

"After a while, it really bothers you and disrupts your family life. I'm usually pretty good about it. I'm getting really, really angry," she said.

"It seemed like there was disappointment in the community with him because he was married to a little white Jewish girl from some show that we don't even remember... It was less about being successful and more about that kind of stuff," she said.

Previously, she told Elle, "People need to realize that it's hurtful. I have the right to hang out and be with and go out with anyone I want to... People have no right to educate me on my private life. I know that part of being in the spotlight is that people might invade your privacy and have opinions on it, but it's bizarre that normal folk are allowed to display such hate and opinions on a part of my life that I'm not putting out there."