Ben Affleck is “happy to be sad Batman” (which he says around the 3:00 mark above) and alright with seeing those memes of him visiting Dunkin,’ but he’s pushing back at coverage of his remarks about alcoholism and his marriage to Jen Garner. Affleck, who promoted The Tender Bar with a Wednesday night visit to Jimmy Kimmel, also attended to a necessary response to what happened after his recent Howard Stern interview.
What a mess. Affleck and Garner share three children from their marriage after splitting in 2018. They have reportedly remained close while co-parenting, so it came as a not-so-fantastic look when those remarks to Stern included Ben’s insight over how he wrestled with leaving the marriage because of his kids. The suggestion there was that he was unhappy and felt “trapped” and that’s “part of why I started drinking.”
While speaking with Kimmel, Affleck maintained that these remarks were part of a two-hour, wide-ranging interview, and that people had taken this point out of context:
“One of these websites had done the clickbait thing. I looked on it, and they had literally taken the conversation that I had had for two hours and made it seem as if I was saying the exact opposite of what I had said. I had gone on… said how much we respected each other, cared about each other, cared about our kids, put them first. It said that I had blamed my ex-wife for my alcoholism, that I was trapped in this marriage, just made me out to be the worst, most insensitive, stupid, awful guy.”
Meanwhile, Affleck also wanted to know that he’s fine with a lot of other things said about him online. “Look, I know people do this, I get it. I’m happy to be sad Batman, I’m happy to be Dunkin’ Donuts and the meme, but when it’s about my kids, I gotta draw the line.”
Affleck continued to say that interpretations of his marriage-alcohol remarks got it all wrong. “Like, that’s not true,” he asserted. “I don’t believe that, it’s the exact opposite of who I am, what I believe. And I would never want my kids to think I would ever say a bad word about their mom.”
Kimmel observed, “This really upset you.” To which Affleck remarked that being the subject of “scandalous” stories was part of being an actor, but when it comes to the fam, he won’t tolerate it. “Don’t do that. It hurts me.”