Ben Affleck sure knows how to push the Internet’s buttons. The Gigli star, 49, spoke candidly on Monday about his marriage to fellow actor Jennifer Garner, claiming that relationship was to blame for his alcohol abuse. “It’s part of why I started drinking,” he said during an appearance on the Howard Stern Show. “Because I was trapped.”
Garner and Affleck, who were married from 2005 to 2015, have three children, aged 16, 12, and 9. Affleck explained to Stern that he would “probably still be drinking” if he’d stayed with Garner. “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,” he said, “which turned out not to be the solution.”
Affleck has been open about attending rehab in the past, including stints in 2001, 2017, and once in 2018, when Garner was spotted driving him to the facility. In one memorable Vanity Fair interview in 2016, she was asked about the actor’s rising phoenix back tattoo. “You know what we would say in my hometown about that? ‘Bless his heart.’ A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario?” Garner replied with a wink, adding, “I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes.”
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