Ben Affleck is getting candid about the two Jens in his life: Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Garner.
Though his relationships with them have been very high-profile, he’s seldom publicly opened up about the two women. But in a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, the 49-year-old actor gave rare comments on both Jen and Jen — and what went down in hir relationships with them.
On his breakup with Jennifer Lopez the first time they were together, Ben admitted:
“I would say it was about 50 percent [of what destroyed our relationship]. The idea that people hate you and they hate you together and that being together is poison and ugly and toxic and the thing none of us want to be part of.
And who the f**k would want to have them to dinner? And what the f**k are they doing together?’”
Bennifer 1.0 began in 2002. They got engaged in 2003 and called things off in 2004. Ben spoke candidly about their initial separation, saying:
“I got f**king hurt and angry and felt like a fool.”
The two found their way back to each other and rekindled their romance earlier this year, and Ben revealed that he felt hesitation about getting back together with her — because he was looking out for his three kids. He said:
“Well, look, my responsibility to my children is the highest responsibility I have. So I won’t do anything that’s painful or destructive to them if I can help it.
That being said, I know that my life affects them. I dropped my son off at school two days ago, and he’s the only one who will talk about it. He’s nine years old and there’s a bunch of the older boys out there doing some toy drive or something, and I heard them go, ‘Oh Ben Affleck, Ben Affleck.’ And my kid looks at me and goes, ‘#WelcomeToMyLife.’”
Ben shares Seraphina, Violet, and Samuel with ex-wife Jennifer Garner.
In the same interview, he likewise opened up about the dissolution of his marriage to Jennifer Garner. They were married from 2005 to 2018. Ben slammed the “f**king horrible lies” that were being reported amidst their split, and shared how things actually went down for him:
“The truth was, we took our time, we made a decision, we grew apart. We had a marriage that did not work. This happens. It is somebody I love and respect, but to whom I should not be married any longer.
And then we said, ‘You know what? We tried. We tried, because we had kids.’ And then both of us felt like, ‘We don’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.’”
Ben also added that he things had they not split up, he and Jen “would have ended up at each other’s throats,” and he “would probably still be drinking”:
“That was part of why I started drinking alcohol, I was trapped. I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I am not happy. What do I do?’ What I did was drink a bottle of scotch on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”
Ben stated that he and Jen G ended things amicably:
“Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over the custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes.
But fundamentally it was always underpinned with respect. I knew she was a good mom. I hope that she knew that I was a good dad. I was. I had to get sober, I knew that too and I acknowledged that. I said, ‘You’re right. I’ve got to quit drinking.’”
And about his sobriety, Ben shared:
“You suffer enough that something inside you goes, ‘I am done.’ I am lucky because I hit that point… when I felt as if [my addiction] impacted [my kids]. I recognized it. It was the worst day of my life.
I made amends. For a while, I thought it was temporary, ‘Maybe this feeling is going to go away.’ But since that day, I swear to Christ, I have not ever wanted to drink once.”
