Zac Affleck from 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' says being related to Ben Affleck was a 'family joke'
In season two, Zac Affleck denied this claim and said it was a family joke.
Here's what to know about the couple, including how they met.
Warning: spoilers ahead for "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" season two.
Jen and Zac Affleck of " The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" caused a stir in the show's first season when they claimed to be related to the Ben Affleck.
Zac sets the record straight in the second season of the show, which premiered on Hulu on Thursday. The first season gave an insight into the dramatic and unconventional lives of a group of eight Mormon TikToker moms living in Utah — known as Mormon MomTokers. The first episode was the most-watched unscripted premiere on Hulu in 2024, surpassing "The Kardashians," The Wrap reported.
Jen is one of the MomTokers, and the Ben Affleck drama isn't the only controversy involving the couple.
Here's what to know about Jen and Zac Affleck.
Zac probably isn't related to Ben Affleck
Last September, before season one premiered, Jen told People that Ben Affleck was the cousin of Zac's father, and said Zac's dad had met him. Then, in season one, episode two, Jen Affleck says Ben is Zac's second cousin.
However, Business Insider's Katie Notopoulos was unable to find a common ancestor between Ben and Zac dating back to 1800, using public records and those available on Ancestry.com.
In the second episode of season two, Zac says it was a "family joke" after Jen mentions Ben while discussing what to wear to a Halloween party.
This makes Jen mad, and she says he made her feel "crazy" for believing the joke.
Zac and Jen met when she was 18, and they got married a year later.
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A post shared by Jen Affleck (@jenniferlaffleck)
Jen said she met Zac on a dating app called Mutual in 2018 when she was 18 and he was 21. The pair got engaged six months later and married in the summer of 2019.
Per Jen's Instagram page, Jen and Zac had their first child, Nora Affleck, in November 2021, and their second child, Lucas Lowell Affleck, in August 2023.
Jen is the breadwinner of the family.
Fans criticized Jen and Zac after he threatened to divorce her in season one after she and the other influencers go to a Chippendales male stripper show.
The pair have since made amends and work on rebuilding their relationship in season two.
At the time " The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" season one was being filmed, Zac had graduated from Brigham Young University and planned to attend medical school to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who were both surgeons.
Jen said there was a big wealth gap between her and Zac's families, which sometimes made her feel judged.
In the pilot episode, Jen said she was the family's provider, and used money from her social media career to support them while Zac attended medical school.
In September 2024, Jen told Vulture that she initially wanted to start a videography business, but she became an influencer after a video about her pregnancy journey went viral.
In the season one finale, Zac pushed for them to leave Salt Lake City and move closer to where he planned to attend medical school.
Jen and Zac are expecting their third child.
People reported in February that Jen was pregnant with the couple's third child.
"I was a few days late, and while it was a surprise, we both had a feeling there was another baby waiting for us. We were very excited, there were a lot of emotions after a very crazy year," Jen said.
Jen said she and her husband are waiting to find out their child's sex, but hope the baby is a girl.
"I've dreamed about this little girl for a while now, and I truly believe she's the one I'm carrying," she told People.
Fans were surprised the couple were having a baby after they almost broke up during season one.
In an episode on "The Viall Files" podcast in September 2024, Jen addressed her fight with Zac on the show, saying she and Zac had gone to therapy "non-stop" after filming ended.
"There was like a few moments where I was like, I don't know if I want to be in this relationship anymore," Jen said. She said she stayed with Zac because she believed he was changing.
"I'm not walking away right now because I do love him, and there is a side that people haven't seen, and I truly believe he's an amazing person," Jen said. "Maybe he didn't take accountability on the show, but he definitely did after."
Jen's parents met at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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A post shared by Jen Affleck (@jenniferlaffleck)
In an episode of the " Weekly Trash" podcast in August 2024, Jen said her mother, Maria, was converted to Mormonism by missionaries in her home country of Ecuardor. Maria met Jen's father, Rick, while they were both attending Brigham Young University in Utah.
Jen said she grew up with two biological siblings, two adopted siblings, and multiple foster kids in the Bay area of Northern California. Her family moved to Utah when she was 14, but Jen said she struggled to fit in because she came from a low-income family.
"I feel like we went from being like this normal family to like a broken family when we moved to Utah because it was just so much to navigate, and it was so hard for all of us," Jen said. "I moved here, and I was like, 'where do I belong?'"
Jen auditioned to be part of 'The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives' before joining Mormon MomTok.
In the "Weekly Trash" podcast episode, Jen said she wasn't affiliated with Mormon MomTok before the show started filming. She became a MomToker after auditioning for and being cast in the show.
Jen said the show helped her and Zac address problems in their marriage before he started medical school.
Jen moved back to Utah after leaving for Arizona.
In the season one finale of "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives," Jessi said Jen messaged her to say that she was leaving the MomTok group.
Jen also shared on TikTok in July that her husband had been accepted to medical school, and her family would be moving closer to it.
In the "Weekly Trash" podcast, Jen said she was moving to Arizona, but hoped to be part of a second season of the show.
Jen is part of the group again in the first episode of season two, and says to the camera that she and Zac separated in the months between filming the two seasons.
Jen says she left Arizona to move into an Airbnb in Utah to rejoin Mormon MomTok. Later in the episode, Zac comes to the house to see if they can move forward with their relationship. He tells Jen that he is leaving medical school for a year to focus on their relationship and support her career.
Jen says Zac can stay and they can take another shot at their relationship, but that they should keep the Arizona house until she is satisfied with his growth.
Katie Notopoulos' report, which found that Zac Affleck and Ben Affleck are not related.
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Sharon Horgan: A mother's love is central to 'Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox'
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Horgan plays Edda Mellas, a German-born Seattle math teacher who is shocked to learn her daughter Amanda (Grace Van Patten) has been wrongfully imprisoned for the sexual assault and murder of her British flatmate while they were studying abroad in Italy in 2007. As a real-life parent herself, Horgan couldn't help but envision how hard she would fight to protect her own daughter if she ended up at the center of such a painful ordeal half a world away. "I'm a mama," she said. "I've got a 21-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl, so, I, unfortunately, found it very easy to imagine either of my girls finding themselves in a terrifying situation [like this]." Knox's trial, conviction, retrial and eventual acquittal made news headlines around the world for more than a decade. "There was sort of a feeding of the public's obsession with it," Horgan said of the non-stop media coverage of the case, which led to countless documentaries and TV news-magazine specials. 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Amanda Knox returns to the U.S. Amanda Knox, left, follows her attorney Michael Nifong as they attend a news conference held at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport near Seattle, Washington on October 4, 2011. After spending four years in an Italian prison Knox arrived in the United States after departing Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport. Knox's life turned around dramatically Monday when an Italian appeals court threw out her conviction in the sexual assault and fatal stabbing of her British roommate. UPI/Jim Bryant | License Photo
Forbes
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But no matter how many times I said that, the police refused to believe me,' she wrote. What Did Amanda Knox Confess To Initially? Knox recalled in The Atlantic that during the interrogation, she was "berated, threatened, lied to, and slapped, and eventually my sanity broke," adding that she "began to believe the lies the police were telling me." Knox said that she agreed to sign statements placing herself and another innocent man in the house when the crime had occurred. Also during the interrogation, she accused Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba of killing Kercher. (Knox worked part-time at Lumumba's bar.) "I recanted only a few hours later, but it didn't matter," Knox wrote. "I was coerced into signing the statements and then charged with criminal slander for doing so. (The police, who did not record the interrogation as they were supposed to, deny that I was hit or pressured into making these statements.)" 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Why Was The First Acquittal Reversed? In March 2013, a retrial was ordered after prosecutors appealed that crucial DNA evidence had been left out, and the case was sent back to an appeals court in Florence. That court reinstated the original guilty verdict against Knox and Sollecito. As NPR reported in 2014, "The latest ruling reinstates the initial verdict and sentences Knox, who currently lives in Seattle, to 28 1/2 years in prison and is likely to set up a long battle over her extradition." Finally, in 2015, the convictions of Knox and Sollecito were definitively overturned by Italy's highest court. The Court of Cassation found that the murder investigation had been flawed from the start. 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He said they'd made a date the night before, on Halloween, when she'd been dressed as a vampire. He claimed that the date at her house ended in consensual sex. He said that they went to bed, and he went down the hall to the bathroom, when he heard Meredith screaming. Not only was Guede's DNA found in the victim, but it was also on her bra and in the house, per NBC News. Guede was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2008, but that verdict included a ruling that he did not commit the crime alone. His sentence was later reduced on appeal before he was released early for good behavior in 2021, according to CNN. But Guede's legal troubles are far from over. He is scheduled to appear in court in November 2025 on charges of sexual assault, mistreatment and stalking. These accusations come from his former girlfriend, whom he began dating while still in perison. According to Italian media, their relationship ended in 2023 when she filed charges against him. 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