Names and faces
■ Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck made it official Friday night on the red carpet for the premiere of Affleck’s “The Last Duel” at the Venice International Film Festival: After weeks of smooching on yachts and holding hands on intimate walks, the old flames have turned new again. She was dripping in Cartier diamonds in a white mermaid, body-hugging gown with plunging neckline and high side slit by Georges Hobeika. He was dapper in a black Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo. There were plenty of kisses and hugs for the cameras after a summer of love for the two, who rekindled their romance in May, 17 years after they broke up. They were spotted out and about in Venice before their formal coming out. At the premiere, the 49-year-old Affleck waved to the crowd as he helped Lopez, 52, out of a car and onto the carpet. For weeks the two haven’t been shy about public displays of affection after getting back together not long after Lopez’s coming apart from Alex Rodriguez. Affleck’s divorce from Jennifer Garner was finalized in 2018. Throughout the summer, they were photographed on a yacht off Saint-Tropez, cuddling on a walk in the Hamptons and nuzzling over sushi in Malibu. Ridley Scott’s medieval drama “The Last Duel” also reunites Affleck and Matt Damon, with some Adam Driver thrown in.
■ Prince Andrew faces a pretrial conference in a U.S. court Monday in the civil suit filed by a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her as the two sides argue over whether the prince was properly served with documents in the case. Attorneys for the woman, Virginia Giuffre, say the documents were handed over to a Metropolitan Police officer on duty at the main gates of Andrew’s home in Windsor Great Park on Aug. 27. But the law firm Blackfords has questioned whether the papers were properly served and raised the possibility of challenging the court’s jurisdiction in the case, according to a Monday letter noted in court documents filed by Giuffre’s attorneys. “We reiterate that our client reserves all his rights, including to contest the jurisdiction of the US courts (including on the basis of potentially defective service),” they wrote. Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York will hold the first pretrial conference in the case in a teleconference Monday. The prince has repeatedly denied the allegations in the lawsuit filed last month by Giuffre, a longtime accuser of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.