Jennifer Garner is reflecting on the "mess" of co-parenting with her ex-husband Ben Affleck.
The "Alias" alum opened up about raising her three children — Violet, 17, Seraphina, 14, and Samuel, 10 — during an appearance in Variety's "Actors on Actors" series alongside Sheryl Lee Ralph, who raised the topic by musing about being a celebrity parent.
"With all the celebrity and all of that, I feel like I have a very normal life, and I think you have that similar sort of vibe. And we love our kids," Ralph said, according to the Daily Mail.
"And all the mess of parenting. It's a gift," Garner, who divorced Affleck in 2015 after a decade of marriage, replied before confirming they maintain an amicable relationship.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Garner agreed with Ralph after she pointed out: "You did something that I did as well — maintain a healthy relationship with my ex for the health and well-being of my children. With the spotlight on us all the time, sometimes that can be difficult."
Affleck previously spoke candidly about his marriage to Garner, and how he likely would not have gotten sober had they not split up, during a 2021 appearance on "The Howard Stern Show."
"We probably would've ended up at each other's throats. I probably still would've been drinking," Affleck said, according to Page Six. "Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped."
Affleck said one of the reasons why he stayed in the marriage was because he wanted to make it work for his kids.
"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," he said.
"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 continued, adding that their eventual split was misconstrued by the media.
"Everything you read [in the news about the divorce] was bulls***. The truth was we took our time, we made our decision," he said. "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."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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