Jennifer Garner’s Kids Say Fans Treat Her Way Differently Than They Treat Ben Affleck

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have both been famous for the entire time they’ve known one another. Their children have spent their lives dealing with paparazzi and news stories about their parents. They’ve seen people approach their parents frequently enough that they can tell the difference in the way the public views them.

Jennifer Garner said her kids noticed the difference in the way people treat her and Ben Affleck

When Garner and Affleck’s three children are out in public with them, they often see fans approach their parents. They’ve noticed that when people approach Affleck, they seem overwhelmed. 

“People are in awe of him,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021. “He’s done incredible things, he’s six-four, he’s … him, and they treat him with a kind of reverence.”

They are nowhere near as reverent when they approach Garner. Instead, they approach her as though she’s an old friend. Garner said her children are surprised by the difference in treatment, but it doesn’t bother her.

“They say that people treat me like we were just in the middle of a conversation and they want to get back to it,” she said. “They’ll see me and be like, ‘Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you …’”

Jennifer Garner shared how she and Ben Affleck talk to their kids about fame

Affleck and Garner’s children have grown accustomed to the endless amount of attention on them. Garner said that when she was still married to Affleck, the family couldn’t escape cameras. 

“You’d go through a yellow light and 15, 20 cars would go through the red light behind you, driving up on the side of roads, and this is just for a mom and a kid,” she said. “We lived down a street that was chock-a-block full of actors, much more successful and famous and decorated than me, including Ben, and they’d all go by one by one, no problem, and then I’d go do a school run and it’d be 15 cars going with me. I never had a day without them, and if I did, if I made it to a park by hiding in the bottom of the pool man’s truck or something, then a nanny would see me there and call a number and they’d swarm.”

She said that she and Affleck have tried their best to protect their kids from this. It’s not possible to shield them from everything, though. She encourages them to speak to her whenever they see tabloid stories about them.

“When they were smaller and there were things out there that were shocking, my request to them was always, ‘Let Dad and I talk you through whatever it is,’” she said. “I’d tell them, ‘If you see an image on the front of a magazine, I’ll look at it with you and we’ll process all the scary feelings that come up together.’”

He said he doesn’t like fame

Given the strain fame has put on his family, it’s unsurprising that Affleck doesn’t enjoy being a celebrity. He said he sees few upsides to fame. 

“I’ve never found any virtue in fame at all,” he said, adding, “I’ve probably gotten out of a couple of [traffic] tickets. I’ve gotten reservations at restaurants. But the whole point was to be able to do this job. That was it. Otherwise, what is it worth? It’s corrosive. It changes the relationships you have with other people.”