Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have spent the majority of their lives in the public eye. The pair have had to learn how to navigate media coverage for privacy, especially after their very public divorce. But in a reasonably old interview, Garner went into a little more detail about the impact of media coverage. In particular, the Alias star describes how the media might’ve pressured her to marry Affleck.
How the media affected Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck
Before Affleck’s marriage with Garner, his relationship with Lopez made him the center of Tabloid coverage everywhere. Affleck believes the attention their relationship received was due to timing.
“You know, there’s always a story of the month,” Affleck said in a recent interview with Awards Chatter. “And me dating Jennifer Lopez happened to be that tabloid story at the time when that business grew exponentially.”
Affleck has often been critical about that era in his life.
“The amount of venom – I must have touched some specific little place in the consciousness,” Affleck said to GQ. “People decided I was the frat guy, even though I’ve never been inside a fraternity or the guy who beat them up at school, even though that wasn’t me at all.”
Garner has also been affected by excessive media coverage. In fact, she expresses how her marriage could’ve been a response to all of the attention she and Affleck were getting.
Jennifer Garner says constant media coverage pressured her into marriage
Garner opened up about constant media coverage’s strain on her relationship with Affleck in an interview with CBS News.
“Scrutiny on your private life puts a pressure on you to make something happen,” Garner said of the situation. “You feel a pressure to hurry up and get married because you think that will end the ‘are they engaged or are they not?”
Garner refers to the period between the years 2000 and 2004.
But even after Garner and Affleck were officially married, Garner still felt the paparazzi’s presence.
“There was a solid decade where there were five or six cars minimum — and easily up to 15 or 20 on the weekends — outside of my house at all times,” Garner said. “I really feel the stress of it, I really — I could cry talking about it.”
Garner had taken steps to rectify the media’s invasion of privacy, specifically when it came to her children. In 2013, she and Halle Berry came together to push an anti-paparazzi bill in California. It was signed into law that same year. The bill was meant to restrict the paparazzi’s ability to photograph children.
Who are Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner dating now?
Ben Affleck has since reunited with his old love in Jennifer Lopez.
Jennifer Garner has moved on with John Miller, an American businessman. Their meeting was reportedly set up by a mutual friend.
Throughout it all, however, Garner and Affleck still remain friends with a great deal of respect for each other.
“Sure, I lost the dream of dancing with my husband at my daughter’s wedding,” Garner said to Vanity Fair. “But you should see their faces when he walks through the door. And if you see your kids love someone so purely and wholly, then you’re going to be friends with that person.”
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