Earlier this week the 49-year-old actor appeared on "The Howard Stern Show" to promote his new movie directed by George Clooney, "The Tender Bar." During the interview, he talked about the difficulties within his previous marriage to Garner, with whom he was married between 2005 and 2018 (though they officially separated in 2015).
At one point during the interview, Affleck said that if they were still together, "I'd probably still be drinking — which is part of why I started drinking alcohol — because I was trapped."
Fans defended Garner after that part of the conversation was reported by multiple publications. During his appearance on the "Jimmy Kimmel Show," Affleck addressed the comment saying that the media reported the opposite of what he was trying to say.
He told Kimmel: "The irony is I was really happy with [the interview], you know. I thought, 'Wow I should do more honest exploratory, you know, self-evaluating things,' and I started seeing all this stuff come up on Twitter and I was like 'What is this?'... I looked on it and they had literally taken the conversation that I had had for two hours and made it seem as if I was saying the exact opposite of what I said."
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Affleck continued: "I had gone on and said how much we respect each other and cared about each other and cared about our kids and put them first and went through our stuff and they said that I had blamed my ex-wife for my alcoholism and that I was trapped in this marriage. Like just made me out to be like the worst most insensitive stupid awful guy."
The "Gone Girl" actor said he was worried about what his kids might think if they saw the articles. Affleck shares three children with Garner: Violet, 16, Seraphina, 12, and Samuel, 9.
"If it's about my kids, I gotta just draw a line," Affleck added. "I want to be really clear: that's not true, I don't believe that. It's the exact opposite of who I am, what I believe, and I would never want my kids to think I would ever say a bad word about their mom because I never have, I never would... It hurts my feelings man!"
He continued: "Even being the subject of that is just sort of the cost of doing business a little bit as an actor but not with my kids. Don't do that. It's wrong, it hurts me. Stop that."
"The Tender Bar" is in select theaters from Friday and on Amazon Prime from January 6.
You can see Affleck's appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" below.
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