Ben Affleck Addresses His Jennifer Garner Divorce Comments Following Backlash

Ben Affleck is clarifying the controversial comments he made about his marriage to ex-wife Jennifer Garner. The Last Duel actor appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday night amid the backlash he received from remarks he made on The Howard Stern Show, during which he said he would “probably still be drinking” if he and Garner hadn’t gotten divorced.

“I would never want my kids to think I would ever say a bad word about their mom,” Affleck told Jimmy Kimmel Wednesday of daughters Violet, 16, and Seraphina, 12, and son Samuel, 9, whom he shares with Garner. The Oscar winner continued that he felt the “meaningful” conversation had been taken out of context to mean the “exact opposite” of what he said. 

“I had gone on and said how much we respect each other and cared about each other and cared about our kids and put them first,” Affleck said, noting that the portion of the interview that made headlines “just made me out to be the worst, most insensitive, stupid awful guy.” He concluded, “That’s not true. I don’t believe that. It’s the exact opposite of who I am, what I believe.”

During his interview with Howard Stern, Affleck shared that his drinking problems, which he had struggled with before marrying Garner, worsened throughout their marriage. “I’d probably still be drinking. It’s part of why I started drinking … because I was trapped,” he said of what would have happened if he and Garner hadn’t gotten a divorce. “I was like ‘I can’t leave ’cause of my kids, but I’m not happy. What do I do?’ What I did was drink a bottle of scotch and fall asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”

Affleck and Garner married in 2005 and separated in 2015 before finalizing their divorce in 2018. The Tender Bar actor added to Stern that while they had given everything to their marriage, it just didn’t work out. “We had a marriage that didn’t work, this happens, with somebody that I love and respect, but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer,” he said. “Ultimately, we tried, we tried, we tried because we had kids. Both of us felt like we don’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.”