Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck are the ultimate co-parenting champs, as it is certainly obvious that they both care deeply for their children. The Alias alum, 49, treated their youngest kid, son Samuel, 9, to a fun lunch date on January 8, while the Deep Waters star, 49, revealed he was worried how the viral “Sad Affleck” meme would affect the brood, including daughters Violet, 15, Seraphina, 12.
For the mother/son outing, Jennifer was the epitome of a cool parent, as she donned a grey t-shirt over a funky tie-dyed long sleeve shirt. She matched the casual chic look with a pair of faded denim and brown sneakers. Hip tortoise sunglasses framed her face, while she kept her trademark chestnut locks long and loose. Samuel was a mini-me in his own bright tie-dyed shirt!
Meanwhile, Ben opened up about the viral meme during an interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying he thought it was just as funny as the rest of the world — but was concerned over how his kids would react. In case you missed it, “Sad Affleck” started after Ben and Henry Cavill were asked about the negative Batman vs. Superman reviews during a 2017 junket and Ben’s reaction was priceless: staring sadly into space. The clip became a hilarious meme and instantly took off, which Ben was totally fine with, until his children reached a certain age.
“I got to a place where [the public perception] was so different from who I am that I just stopped reading and stopped caring,” Ben began. “But then, as my kids got older and started seeing the internet themselves, that’s the difficult part. Even the ‘Sad Affleck’ meme — that was funny to me. But then my kids see it and I think, ‘Oh, are they going to think their dad is fundamentally sad or they have to worry about me?’ That’s really tough.”
The actor has been very candid of late, as he revealed how he “probably still would’ve been drinking” if he hadn’t separated from Jennifer in 2015. “Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped,” he said during his recent interview on The Howard Stern Show. “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.”
After 10 years of marriage, the couple officially filed for divorce in April of 2017, which was finalized in October 2018. “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,” Ben added.