Photo: Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images
Just because you are a handsome and successful movie star does not make you immune from your teenagers razzing you. In fact, your very public foibles will probably just become fodder for their taunts. Ben Affleck has learned this the hard way at his own dinner table, where his three kids are apparently teaming up to roast his ass.
Affleck appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last Thursday, where he revealed that he has been demoted from “cool dad” status by the three children he shares with ex-wife Jennifer Garner.
“Now I give advice and try to talk to them — parent them, as you do,” Affleck told Kimmel. “What I found is that now it’s not only one teenager rolling their eyes, I’ll kind of launch into something at the dinner table and I’ll catch them giving each other looks and I realize I’m the caricature in this story. Where I see them being like, Oh, Dad is saying this again.”
“I couldn’t imagine I wouldn’t be the cool dad,” Affleck said. Instead of thinking he’s cool, Affleck’s kids — Violet, 20; Fin, 17; and Samuel, 14 — seem to see him more as an inspiration for punch lines.
“My kids are talking at dinner and they’re talking about their friends and the drama and the relationships and I have some lived experience, I think, that’s worth sharing, some lessons,” Affleck said. “You know, these are the kind of things we give to our children. And I said, ‘You know, well, the thing about that relationship there …’ and the 17-year-old turns to me and goes, ‘Oh, like you’re the expert on relationships?’” The teen was, of course, referencing Affleck’s two messy divorces with Jennifers Garner and Lopez.
“I was with the same kid, I went to the bookstore with them and you know how they put all the displays with the books up, you see the titles, we’re just browsing around some book by a French guy, and it’s called I’m Sorry for Everything,” Affleck continued. “My kid immediately just turns to me deadpan and goes, ‘Oh look, Dad, it’s your autobiography.’”
Ouch. It seems like Fin in particular is really getting good at hitting Affleck where it hurts. Luckily, Affleck loves it. “I was kind of proud of them though,” he said. “I’m like, my kid skirts the line. I like that.”
Honestly, this all sounds really fun and healthy. Affleck’s laughing, the kids are laughing, we’re all laughing! What I really want to know is how hard are these teens going at him for his giant phoenix back tattoo? I’m sure the zingers are going crazy during a beach vacation.
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