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The actress spoke about the intense interest in her family during an appearance on Evan Ross Katz’s ‘Shut Up Evan’ podcast
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Jennifer Garner has spoken out about the extreme efforts of some photographers to take photos of her kids during her marriage to ex-husband Ben Affleck
She shared how the intense focus on her family disrupted her kids’ lives, including forcing one to quit soccer during an appearance on Evan Ross Katz’s Shut Up Evan podcast
The 13 Going on 30 star has long advocated for anti-paparazzi laws to protect children and testified in support of legislation in 2013
Jennifer Garner has spoken out about the paparazzi’s extreme efforts to photograph her kids while they were growing up.
The actress, 54, shares three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck, 53: Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 12, and she’s often been vocal about the impact of photographers on her family, particularly during her marriage to Affleck.
Speaking to Evan Ross Katz on his Netflix podcast Shut Up Evan, Garner described the paparazzi’s treatment of her family as “ludicrous,” explaining, “It was a danger to everyone around us.”
She said, “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.”
One of her children even had to stop playing soccer because there were so many people following them, the 13 Going on 30 star revealed.
“The [soccer] association asked us to stop [attending] because there were 20 cars coming [to practice],” she said. “It wasn’t just about us. It was an industry that had gotten out of control.”
Garner, whose latest drama miniseries The Five-Star Weekend came out on Peacock on Thursday, July 9, recalled struggling to get to the pediatrician with a sick child because of paparazzi blocking the door to the doctor’s office. “There’s something wrong with that,” she said, “and the kids are paying the price.
“Kids were getting knocked over coming out of preschool by photographers who were so hungry to get to me or Ben, trying to get to our kids, that it was just like, ‘You gotta stop, you gotta watch for the little kids. You don’t belong at a school, you know?’ ”
Garner acknowledged her family’s privilege, admitting that she was “grateful for all that has afforded us,” but said the paparazzi’s focus “just got silly.”
She added that many “more famous and successful” people lived on the same street as them, but said photographers would always focus on her as “the chick with the kids.”
“They wouldn’t follow Ben,” she explained, “They wouldn’t follow Matt Damon.”
When Katz asked her about her current situation, she explained that she’s had two photographers who have been assigned to her for more than two decades.
“I have a very interesting relationship with my main guy,” she said. “We have an odd respect for each other.”
She recalled a time when she was followed by a man she thought was going to hurt her and “ran” to the photographer because she “knew him and trusted him.”
Laughing, she added, “At the same time, I’ve called the cops on him a million times and been like, ‘Can you please just give me a walk around the block with my kids and my dog?’ ”
Garner has long campaigned for anti-paparazzi laws and, in 2013, she testified in support of a bill to protect celebrities’ children from harassment by photographers in California, per The Guardian.
In 2009, she called out paparazzi for being “aggressive” toward her daughter Violet, then 3, and in 2020 she described their treatment of her family as a “total circus,” adding, “It’s a cost of doing business, but it just got to be ridiculous.”
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The following year, she said that she doesn’t have many family photos of her children when they were growing up because they were scared of cameras.
She recalled Violet speaking out against the paparazzi as a 6-year-old, too. “She stood up on a chair in a little velvet dress, with her hair a bit back and her glasses on and she didn’t say her Rs right,” she explained.
“And she said: ‘We didn’t ask for this. We don’t want these cameras, they’re scary. The men are scary, they knock each other over and it’s hard to feel like a kid when you’re being chased.’ ”
Read the original article on People
