Ben & Lindsay: Starting a Family!

Lindsay Shookus is one step closer to becoming Mrs. Ben Affleck — and having his baby

Ben Affleck’s girlfriend of a year, Lindsay Shookus, isn’t naturally drawn to the spotlight. “It’s strange to me,” the Satur

day Night Live producer and mother of a 5-year-old daughter, Madeline, recently told Elle magazine about her newfound fame. “My entire career has been behind the camera, and that’s definitely where I’m most comfortable. I’m a producer, I’m a mom, a friend.”

There’s another title she’s planning to add in the near future: Mrs. Affleck. The 38-year-old NBC staffer and the actor — who have known each other for years but only became involved publicly last summer — are planning to tie the knot and start a family. “Lindsay really wants a baby with Ben, and he’s all for it,” an insider tells In Touch exclusively. Ben, 45, feels like the time is finally right: Three years after he and Jennifer Garner, 46, split, the parents of Violet, 12, Seraphina, 9, and Samuel, 6, “are on really good terms,” says the insider, noting that Ben’s life “is more settled now.” To that end, he’s eager to move on. “Ben and Lindsay want to be husband and wife,” says the insider. “They love their blended family, but they also want to start adding to it, too.”

PLAYING HOUSE

They’ve already completed phase one of their plan by moving in together. While SNL is on hiatus for the summer, Lindsay and Madeline have relocated from their home in NYC to Ben’s mansion in LA’S Pacific Palisades neighborhood. The trio were even spotted taking a hike with Lindsay’s parents on June 24. (The night before, Ben, Lindsay and his future in-laws dined at Cassia in Santa Monica.) And despite some frosty interactions between Lindsay

and Jen when Ben and his new love first came out as a couple, the two women are making nice. “They’re not carpooling or anything, but both came to terms with the fact that they will be in each other’s life,” says the insider. “That’s just a fact, so they’re making it work.” The insider says Jen also has a soft spot for Lindsay because she has helped Ben, who has twice been to rehab for alcohol addiction: “Jen feels Lindsay is a big reason he’s curbed his drinking.”

MINOR OBSTACLE

The only things stopping Ben and Lindsay from walking down the aisle are their respective marriages. Though Ben has been separated from Jen for three years and Lindsay and her estranged husband, Kevin Miller, a producer on Late Night With

Seth Meyers, haven’t lived together in quite some time, both former couples are still legally wed. “Ben is on board to push through his divorce by the end of the year, and he’s hoping to wed Lindsay in late spring or early summer of 2019,” says the source, who adds that Ben hopes Lindsay will be officially single by the turn of the year, too. “Then they can start working on having a child.”

As unconventional as their blended family is, Lindsay and Ben remain traditional on that subject. “They both agree that they want to be married before Lindsay gets pregnant,” says the insider. “Wedding first, then a baby.”

Miranda Lambert still has a lot to get off her chest. On June 19 — two years after writing about her painful divorce from Blake Shelton on her double album, The Weight of These Wings — she again opened up about the split in an interview released on the website HITS Daily Double. She admitted that Blake — who blindsided her in 2015 when he ended their marriage and pushed her out of the town where they’d built a life — broke her heart. Going through a divorce so publicly made her “feel so alone.... I feel like I’ve captured the seven stages of grief [on the album],” she revealed. “But it took me 24 songs to get there.”

Grief is an understatement. Miranda, 34, was devastated when Blake, 42, suddenly left her and took up with his fellow Voice coach Gwen Stefani, 48, just months later, sources tell In Touch. “She wears her heartbreak like a badge. The cold-blooded way Blake broke her heart, cut her out of his life and shoved his romance with Gwen in her face is something that will scar her forever,” says one source. “Blake really put her through hell, and she’s letting people know it.”

BLAKE’S SIDE OF THE STORY

When the “Go Ahead and Break My Heart” singer told Miranda it was over, he essentially booted her from their ranch and from Tishomingo, Okla., where Miranda was a thriving business owner. “In a matter of days, she was sent packing. She didn’t know what hit her,” says the source. “She became more distraught when rumors spread that she’d cheated with a number of men and Blake did nothing to stop it. It was a nightmare for her.”

In reality, the marriage had soured as their careers skyrocketed and took them on the road separately for long stretches. “They became strangers,” says the source. “She lost trust in him, and he became suspicious of her. She knew the marriage was in trouble but somehow she always thought they could come together and save it.”

Blake didn’t feel the same way. But he says he, too, was heartbroken when the marriage ended. “I… hit rock bottom just like anybody does when they go through some-

thing that devastating,” he said in a June 24 interview, just five days after Miranda’s candid interview came out. Miranda’s continued discussion of the split bothers Blake, says a friend: “He feels like he’s being villainized. Blake is done with Miranda writing and talking about the divorce.”

But Miranda isn’t done singing about it. When she tours with Little Big Town this summer — beginning in Charlotte, N.C., on July 12 — the country megastar “will be featuring the songs prominently,” reveals the source, adding that even though Miranda has happily moved on with Turnpike Troubadours frontman Evan Felker (see sidebar), “Blake’s a big part of her confessional songs and is going to be for a long time to come.” ◼