For Jen Affleck, timing is everything.
The star of the original The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and its upcoming spinoff set in Orange County, California, filed for divorce from her husband of seven years, Zac, last week while expecting the estranged pair’s fourth child. In an interview released by Entertainment Tonight on Friday, Jen explained how her pregnancy influenced her decision to file.
“… it sounds crazy to say, but because I’m about to be postpartum, I knew that I need to make the decision now and not when I was, not being postpartum, because when you’re postpartum it’s the most vulnerable stage of having children and I was worried that if I waited until then that I would continue the cycle,” she said.
“Also, rewatching the show, it made me realize, ‘Man, like I have trained myself to forget, I have trained myself to survive,’ and the show made me realize, like, no, like, I’m not forgetting this time,” Jen added.
Though she didn’t go into specifics on what the things were she decided to no longer forget about her marriage in the interview with Entertainment Tonight, a new report from The U.S. Sun may provide some clues as to what was happening in the relationship, particularly last fall when Jen was competing on Dancing with the Stars.
“Zac was a nightmare on set,” an unnamed production insider told the publication. “He didn’t allow [dance pro] Jan [Ravnik] to fully do his job and made things very uncomfortable.
“Jan was a total professional and dealt with it but Zac was much more controlling than any other partner that season,” the source continued. “Even crew members felt they had to tip-toe around him because he was constantly upset over something.”
The insider shared a few examples of Zac’s behavior on set.
“He asserted his dominance and tried to dictate certain dance moves that were off limits for Jen, and he said there were certain costuming things she couldn’t wear,” the source told The U.S. Sun. “Poor Jan was trying to do his job well as a first-time pro and he had a very stressful experience, largely because of Zac.”
In March, Zac posted a series of photos summing up his life over the preceding few months, which included a few from Jen’s time on ‘DWTS’. One follower commented on the post, “may i never be cursed with a man like you in my life.”
As The Ashley reported, Zac posted his response to Jen’s filing on TikTok on Thursday, first alleging he was blindsided by the divorce then sharing that the relationship was in trouble following Jen’s stint on ‘DWTS.’
“Jen came to me about a year ago after [competing on] ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and told me she was unhappy and wanted to divorce,” he said, as reported by People. “And I basically begged her to stay, told her [I would] work on things, fix things, become whoever she needed me to be, and ultimately we just couldn’t make it work.”
Jen countered Zac’s claim that her filing came as a surprise in the Entertainment Tonight interview.
“He’s not blindsided, I’ve been telling him for a really long time and, obviously, being pregnant and being vulnerable, I mean, it’s been hard to finalize things, especially when you see your kids and you see, you see how happy they are, I mean, it’s not an easy decision but, no, I’ve told him for a really long time,” she said.
Watch the full interview with Entertainment Tonight below:
(Photos: Instagram)
It’s like that Kelsea Ballerini song: “were you blindsided, or were you just blind?”