Ben Affleck has admitted he is still getting used to the “bananas” level of fame of his wife, Jennifer Lopez.
The Gone Girl star sat down with Kevin Hart for an expansive interview last week amid rumours of marital strife and, despite admitting that his public “resting bitch face” might be fuelling the theory, noted just how famous his wife really is — and how difficult that can be.
He explained that even his kids with ex-wife Jennifer Garner are aware he’s concerned about raising them in the spotlight. Ben noted one of them even cheekily bugs him with titles for a hypothetical tell-all, and recalled one particularly relevant moment in New York City.
“I get out with [Jennifer], all the kids, through Times Square,” said Ben in his Hart To Heart chat. “The shit was fucking bananas. It was like the mayor [arrived] … and there’s this lady, she’s smoking weed, wearing a purple, skintight suit … and she sees [us].”
“She starts running backwards, filming, going, ‘J-Lo!’” he continued. “It’s like a herald that then gets everyone else, and then they’re all [starstruck] tourists.
“Then I’m moving, we got our five kids, me and Jen, and it feels like hundreds of people – and they’re all screaming.”
“And my daughter just turns to me and goes, ‘J-Lo Was My Stepmother’,” Ben joked.
While certainly famous himself, the actor saw his first engagement with Jennifer in 2002 called off after relentless tabloid press. Ben, who married Jennifer Garner in 2005 but divorced her in 2018, is still learning how to navigate that fame.
“I really fucking second-guess it a lot,” he told the comedian about raising his kids that way. “That’s the balance, and I talk with Jennifer about that a lot as we look at what was the difference between our kids’ lives … and our lives growing up … I didn’t know any rich people.”
“I’m also a little bit shy,” Ben added. “I also don’t like a lot of attention. This is why people see me and they’re like, ‘This dude always mad!’ — because somebody has their camera and sticks it in my face and I’m … with my kids and you’re taking my picture.”
The actor drew all-new media attention with his 2022 elopement with Jen in Las Vegas. Ben, whose mere facial expressions have gone viral, admitted Thursday that his “resting bitch face” gets him into trouble — even when he’s doing something innocuous.
“People are projecting something onto me that I don’t feel about myself at all,” he told the host.
“And one thing I do think it gives off, whether it’s a certain look or role … for a long time they’d be like, ‘This guy’s a frat guy.’ I’ve never been in a fraternity one day in my life.”