Ben Affleck's bad week gets WORSE after Jennifer Garner’s pals label actor 'disgusting'
Friends of Jennifer Garner have fired back at Ben Affleck after he apparently blamed the actress for his alcoholism when they were married. During his recent appearance on SiriusXM’s ‘The Howard Stern Show,’ the actor said that he felt “trapped” in marriage with Garner and might have never gotten sober if he had remained married to her.
But a source who knows Affleck and Garner slammed him and told Page Six, “It’s disgusting. 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.”
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Another insider said, “Anyone who knows addict behavior knows how untrue those comments could be for any addict, but particularly Ben. It’s one of the first tenets of AA not to place blame for your disease.”
The reactions came after Affleck, who had been married to Garner from 2005 to 2018 and went to rehab three years ago because of his addiction, told Stern: “We probably would’ve ended up at each other’s throats. I probably still would’ve been drinking. Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped.”
He continued: “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.” The 49-year-old actor who shares three kids – Violet, 16, Seraphina, 12, and 9-year-old Samuel – with the ‘13 Going on 30’ actress noted: “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.”
Affleck also clarified that his relationship with his former wife ended on good terms. He added: “Everything you read [in the news about the divorce] was bulls–t. The truth was we took our time, we made our decision … We grew apart. We had a marriage that didn’t work. This happens. She’s somebody I love and respect, but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer.”
This comes after journalist Piers Morgan lambasted Affleck in an op-ed. He wrote, “By blaming his boozing on his loyal protective ex-wife, Ben Affleck has revealed himself to be a narcissistic deadbeat douchebag who loves himself more than any of the Jennifers in his life.”
The British journalist went on to quote Garner who once said of her ex-husband, “When his sun shines on you, you feel it. But when the sun is shining elsewhere, it's cold. He can cast quite a shadow.” Referring to that, Morgan said: “I imagine that shadow feels particularly large and Siberia-level freezing today following Affleck's astonishingly insensitive interview yesterday with Howard Stern.”
“The truth is that Affleck had a massive drink problem before he met their mum, while he was with her, and after he left her. To now suggest that being 'trapped' with the mother of his kids is why he drowned himself in whiskey every night is as disingenuous as it's cruelly unfair to a woman who's done everything she can to help and protect him,” the 56-year-old broadcaster added.