Ben Affleck on Tuesday revealed to Howard Stern his brief hesitation about rekindling a relationship with Jennifer Lopez. The reason: He knew media and paparazzi would kick into overdrive, and he worried about his children.
Affleck dropped by the show to promote his upcoming film The Tender Bar, which is directed by George Clooney. Asked if he thought twice about getting back together with singer-actress Lopez, whom he famously dated in the early 2000s, the Oscar-winning star replied, “It crossed my mind for sure. My responsibility to my children is the highest responsibility. I don’t want to do anything that is painful or destructive to them if I can help it.”
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With both parents as movie stars, Affleck told Stern his three kids with Jennifer Garner have been under a microscope their entire lives. And he took mitigating the madness seriously.
“My life affects them. Me and their mom are celebrities. That is hard. That is a cross to bear,” Affleck told Stern, adding that “horrible lies” were printed by the tabloids during their divorce.
“The truth was we took our time, we made the decision, we grew apart,” he said of this relationship ending with Garner. “We had a marriage that didn’t work. We tried because we had kids. We did not want it to be the model of marriage for the kids. We did our best. I knew she was a good mom, and I hoped she knew I was a good dad. I had to get sober, and I acknowledge that.”
Affleck unabashedly addressed his struggles with alcoholism, saying his rock bottom was how his kids began to look at him.
“The cure for addiction is suffering,” he said. “You suffer enough before something inside you goes, ‘That’s enough.’ It was my kids. Since that day, I swear to Christ, I have not wanted to drink once. I am not cured. I am not a preacher, but there is a happy ending if you can get there.”
