Jennifer Garner revealed Saturday that she tries to avoid news about herself and her ex-husband Ben Affleck because it “doesn’t feel good” — and that includes good news and memes, too.
“I really work hard not to see either of us in the press,” Garner, 50, told Aussie magazine Stellar. “It doesn’t make me feel good, even if it’s something nice about one of us.”
The “13 Going on 30” star said she also goes out of her way to avoid press coverage of all her loved ones.
“I just try to forget that I’m out there in any way, and the same with anyone I love,” Garner added. “I don’t need to see anyone in my family made into a meme. Although I’m sure he’s quite meme-worthy, yes!”
Affleck, 50, and Garner met in 2001 on the set of the film “Pearl Harbor” and began dating publicly in 2004.
The pair tied the knot in 2005 after announcing they were going to have the first of three children together.
Affleck and Garner split in 2015 and finalized their divorce in 2018, the same year Affleck checked himself into rehab for alcoholism.
While he’s now sober, the “Argo” actor said on “The Howard Stern Show” that he thinks he would still be drinking if he had stayed married to Garner.
“We probably would’ve ended up at each other’s throats. I probably still would’ve been drinking,” said Affleck, adding that he felt “trapped” in his marriage.
“Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped,” he said.
“I was like, ‘I can’t leave because of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ And what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution,” continued Affleck. “Ultimately, we tried, we tried, we tried because we had kids, but both of us felt like we didn’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.”
But the “Good Will Hunting” star said they ended things on good terms.
“We did it amicably. We did our best. Did we have moments of tension? Did we have disagreements over custody? Was stuff difficult for us? Did we get angry? Yes, but fundamentally it was always underpinned with a respect,” said Affleck. “I knew she was a good mom. I always hoped she knew I was a good dad. I knew I was.”
Several of Garner’s friends were reportedly angry over the interview.
“It’s disgusting,” one source close to both Garner and Affleck said. “Jen has been the only one picking him up time and time again when he’s done horrible things — fallen off the wagon or worse.”
“Jen stood by him because she loves him. This is the mother of his children,” continued the source.
In 2023, the “Gone Girl” actor walked back the comments he made saying that they were taken out of context.
“I had a really painful experience where I did an interview where I was really vulnerable, and the entire pickup was something that was not only not right, it was actually the opposite of what I meant,” Affleck told The Hollywood Reporter. “I think I was pretty articulate about that.”
Affleck married Jennifer Lopez in 2022 after the pair called it quits 21 years ago.