Here’s why the paparazzi follow celebs like Jennifer Garner every single day

Jennifer Garner has lifted the lid on what the paparazzi are actually like for a celebrity of her caliber, and many people have been left shocked by what she had to say.

As a reminder, 54-year-old Jen rose to fame in the early ‘00s thanks to her starring role in the TV series Alias.

She went on to appear in a ton of popular movies, including 13 Going on 30, Juno, and Dallas Buyers Club, and played the Marvel character Elektra in a bunch of superhero films.

As for her personal life, Jennifer largely keeps to herself. However, her relationship with Ben Affleck sparked a fair amount of media attention, with the two together from 2004 until 2015. Ben and Jen share three children, and they have kept their relationship incredibly amicable post-split. Jennifer is now thought to be dating businessman John C. Miller.

But despite maintaining a decidedly private life throughout her decades in the spotlight — with any drama kept firmly behind closed doors — Jen revealed that she has spent the last 25 years being followed by the same two paparazzi every single day.

The revelation was made during her recent appearance on the Shut Up Evan Netflix podcast, with Jen initially reflecting on how “ludicrous” the press attention was a few years back, when paparazzi culture was arguably at its peak, and how it impacted her children. She said: “It felt like ‘poor little me,’ you know? ‘Poor little kids who have everything in the world,’ but it was a danger to everyone around us. If I went through a yellow light, 15 cars would go through the red behind me. They would drive up onto people’s lawns, even on a hillside. We were trying to have our little one play soccer, and the association asked us to stop because there were 20 cars coming.”

“So it wasn't just about us, it was just an industry that had gotten out of control,” she went on. “If you show up and you're trying to get into the pediatrician, and you have a sick kid on your shoulder, and you're scared, and that you can't get into the door because you're blocked by photographers, there's something wrong with that, and the kids are paying the price. Kids were getting knocked over coming out of preschool by photographers who are so hungry to get to me or to Ben, trying to get to our kids, that it was just like… You gotta watch for the little kids, you don't belong at a school.”

“So as much as I recognize that we are privileged and lucky, and I’m grateful for all that that has afforded us, and all that that's made available, at the same time, it just got silly, and kids were at the center of it,” Jen explained. “I mean, I lived on the street with a lot of much more famous and successful people than I, but they followed me because I had the kids. They wouldn't follow Ben, they wouldn't follow Matt Damon, they were like: ‘There’s the chick with the kids!’”

Host Evan Ross Katz then asked Jen if she thinks the “current landscape” has “changed dramatically” when it comes to paparazzi, and that’s when she revealed: “I have two every day who've been assigned to me for 20 plus years, 25 years.”

“It's really interesting, I've a very interesting relationship with my main guy. I mean, I've done anything to ask him to leave, and at the same time, we have an odd respect for each other,” she shared. “We’ve had some really real-life moments together; I was followed by someone who, for whatever reason, I thought was gonna hurt me, and I ran to him because I knew him, and trusted him, and I knew he and I would be OK, you know what I mean? Like, there's kind of a Stockholm Syndrome thing, and at the same time, I've called the cops on him a million times.”

But one of the most frequent responses to it all was people questioning why a notoriously private and drama-free celebrity like Jennifer Garner would be trailed by the paparazzi every single day. One popular reply asks: “This is so crazy because who tf is asking for daily pictures of Jennifer Garner for 20 years? This is not a dig because she is a major star. But surely they could make due with weekly or biweekly pictures?”

“like no offense but there are people way bigger than jennifer garner you know,” somebody else wrote, another added: “There’s no way she’s that famous.” You get the gist, and I’m here to explain it to you.

While what the first response says is true, nobody really needs daily photos of Jennifer — or anybody for that matter — the nuance that is missing is that the paparazzi follow these celebrities on the off chance that something interesting actually happens. If they only followed Jennifer Garner around on Mondays, and on a Tuesday she falls over, or kisses a mystery man, or is abducted into space, they’ve missed out on a pretty huge payday. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be that major — who can forget how viral those pics of Ben Affleck dropping his Dunkin’ Donuts order went back in 2020? No paps, no pics, no payout.

And speaking of Ben, while Jen might not be doing anything of interest on any given day, her very famous ex might be — and that’s the bread and butter of those classic tabloid headlines like "Celebrity Seen Looking Sad As Their Ex Is Spotted Kissing New Person," or "Celebrity Looks Stressed After Ex Goes Viral For Problematic Comments," etc.

Finally, there might be an instance where a celebrity reveals that something happened to them in the past that the public didn’t know about. If you are a member of the paparazzi who has been following that celebrity every single day for years, you can literally just go into your archives and pluck photos that you took from this date and sell them to the highest bidder now that there is meaning attached to them.

Am I saying that any of this is right or acceptable? Absolutely not. But unfortunately, it’s just the way of the land, and that is why even the most passive high-profile names are trailed pretty much every time that they leave their house, let alone the unpredictable ones who are more likely to do something newsworthy.

So, what are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments down below!

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