Ben Affleck is opening up about the emotional toll of life under a constant lens — and why he deeply empathizes with Britney Spears and others who’ve endured relentless paparazzi pressure.
Speaking on the April 24 episode of This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, the Accountant 2 star addressed his own strained history with tabloid culture — particularly the infamous “Sad Affleck” memes — and how the system is built to provoke public figures into breakdowns.
“When somebody’s taking a picture of me, I’m bummed,” Affleck said. “Usually I’m with my kids, I’m trying to go somewhere, and there’s four guys like, ‘Hey, man!’ Every time.”
Affleck explained that paparazzi harassment is designed for profit, not coverage:
“The idea is, follow somebody around, antagonize them, and then hopefully they’ll have a nervous breakdown and go crazy on you — then your video’s worth more money.”
He reflected on how this toxic cycle played out for Spears, particularly during her most difficult public years. Though Affleck says he doesn’t know the pop icon personally, he recalled thinking years ago, “I really had a lot of empathy for Britney Spears. Having had my own experiences, I knew these people were following her around at a time where she may or may not have been having difficulty.”
To him, public celebrity breakdowns don’t happen despite the paparazzi — they happen because of them.
“The cycle of having people harangue you and yell at you and hassle you and follow you… it seemed like that itself was whipping up the whole thing into a tizzy.”
Affleck described the media environment as a “kind of collective cruelty,” where the public only sees the final reaction, not the provocation:
“What’s taken out of the image that you see are the people waving the stick at the tiger. All you see is the growling animal.”
As one half of early-2000s tabloid darlings “Bennifer” — alongside Jennifer Lopez — Affleck has been a paparazzi fixture for decades. He and Lopez reconciled in 2021, married in 2022, and divorced earlier this year. His romantic history with Lopez, Ana de Armas, and ex-wife Jennifer Garner has fueled renewed media attention he says is often unwelcome, especially around his children.
“I don’t mind. You can take my picture at a club or a premiere, with my wife, I don’t give a f—,” he told Kevin Hart in a 2024 episode of Hart to Heart. “But with my children, that’s a different thing.”
You can watch the full episode of This Past Weekend featuring Ben Affleck on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
