Key Takeaways
- Ben Affleck said his 17-year-old mocked his relationship advice by asking, “Oh, like you’re the expert on relationships?”
- The teen later spotted a book titled I’m Sorry for Everything and called it Affleck’s autobiography, a joke he admitted made him proud.
- Affleck also praised ex-wife Jennifer Garner as a close friend after revealing she declined his offer to play his wife in Animals.
Ben Affleck’s kids aren’t letting him forget about his complicated relationship history.
During a Sept. 24 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Affleck revealed that one of his teenagers brutally roasted him twice, first after he tried offering relationship advice and later when they stumbled across a perfectly titled book.
Affleck explained that conversations about friendships, dating, and relationship drama regularly come up when his family sits down for dinner. Given his own experiences, the actor figured he could offer some wisdom.
“My kids are talking at dinner and they, you know, they’ll talk about their friends and the drama and the relationships,” Affleck said. “And I have some lived experience. So, I think that’s worth sharing some lessons that I, you know, these are the kind of things we give to our children.”
His 17-year-old wasn’t buying it.
“I said, ‘Well the thing about that relationship there with that person is—’ and the 17-year-old just turns to me and goes, ‘Oh, like you’re the expert on relationships?’” Affleck recalled.
The roasting didn’t stop there.
Affleck said they later visited a bookstore, where his teen spotted a book by a French author titled I’m Sorry for Everything.
“Oh look, Dad, it’s your autobiography,” the teen joked.
Instead of getting upset, Affleck admitted he couldn’t help but appreciate the quality of the joke.
“I was kind of proud of them, though. Like, ‘My kid’s, that’s a good line. I like that,’” he said.
Affleck shares three children with his ex-wife Jennifer Garner: Violet, 20, Seraphina, 17, and Samuel, 14. He joked that his children have also reached the point where they can communicate their reactions to him simply by exchanging looks with one another.
His romantic history certainly gave his teen plenty of material. Affleck married Garner in 2005 before the couple separated in 2015 and finalized their divorce in 2018. He later rekindled his relationship with Jennifer Lopez nearly two decades after their first engagement. The pair married in 2022 before Lopez filed for divorce in 2024.
Elsewhere during his conversation with Kimmel, Affleck revealed that he considered having Garner play his wife in his upcoming film Animals. She wasn’t interested.
“Jen was like, ‘Great, but no, I’m not gonna play your wife in a movie,’” Affleck said. “Probably for the best. That lesson has been learned.”
Despite the rejection, Affleck had nothing but praise for Garner and their relationship today.
“She’s fabulous, and we’re really good friends, and I’m profoundly grateful to her, and we have a great thing,” he said.
Affleck ultimately took the starring role in Animals alongside Kerry Washington after Matt Damon left the project to work on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
