Ben Affleck

WEEK IN REVIEW: J.Lo, Ben to Tie Knot

By Stephen M. Silverman

11/08/2002 at 10:00 AM EST

J.LO, BEN ENGAGED: Sources confirmed to PEOPLE that 30-year-old bachelor Ben Affleck has presented Jennifer Lopez, 33, with a pink-diamond solitaire he chose himself and had custom-made by jeweler-to-the-stars Harry Winston. "She was very surprised -- and she's not used to being surprised," a friend tells the magazine of Affleck's proposal. "Everybody's in a love-fest mood." A source told PEOPLE that the pair had hoped to keep their engagement a secret until Lopez spilled the news in her interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC's "Primetime" Nov. 13.

RYDER VERDICT: In case you haven't heard, Winona Ryder was found guilty Wednesday in her shoplifting case. But the actress's lawyer, Mark Geragos, says he will petition for a new trial. Ryder was found guilty of two felonies, vandalism and grand theft, but not of commercial burglary. That count would have required the jury to believe Ryder's shoplifting spree was premeditated. Juror Walter Fox said on Thursday morning's "Today" show that the surveillance tape showing Ryder leaving the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue store with stolen merchandise was the most damning evidence against her.

BY GEORGE: George Clooney made a few confessions about love and marriage with The New York Times. Acknowledging that although he keeps saying he doesn't want to get married, his next movie ends happily -- with a wedding. But, Clooney points out, "There's a coffin in the back of the church as the wedding is going on ... Look, I'm a romantic. I like marriage." Then, after a beat, he added: "In the movies." Later, when asked if it were true Nicole Kidman had bet Clooney that he would be married by the time he was 40, he replied: "She did. And now I'm 41, Nicole sent me a check for $10,000. I mailed it back and wrote, 'Double or nothing for another 10 years.'"

CANDID KIDMAN: For those disbelievers out there, Nicole Kidman, 35, told Vanity Fair magazine that before Tom Cruise divorced her this year after nearly 10 years together, the couple had a "real marriage." In response to rumors about the couple's sexuality: "They've said I'm gay, they've said everyone's gay ... I personally don't believe in doing huge lawsuits about that stuff. Tom does. That's what he wants to do, that's what he's going to do. You do not tell Tom what to do. That's it. Simple. He is a force to be reckoned with." As she explains in the magazine profile: "I have a different approach. I don't file lawsuits because I really don't care ... I just want to do my work, raise my kids, and hopefully find somebody who I can share my life with again."

BUTLER'S REVENGE: In what is being perceived as revenge for the hell he was put through at his theft trial, former royal butler Paul Burrell launched a vitriolic attack on Princess Diana's family. In an installment of the tabloid newspaper series "What The Butler Said" -- for which the Daily Mirror reportedly paid Burrell $625,000 -- the once-loyal servant to Diana says of Diana's brother, Earl Spencer, and his funeral speech for her: "Am I the only person here who thinks he is a hypocrite?" Burrell also reveals that Diana had requested that he eavesdrop on a phone conversation she was having with her mother, Frances Shand Kydd. ("It was horrible. She was using the kind of language you would never expect to hear a mother ever say to a daughter.") The conversation concerned Diana's relationship with Muslim men, Burrell said.