14 DAY TRIAL // If we’re to go by the reports online, Ben Affleck is a serial cheater, an addict gambler, a liar and a messy drunk. The thing is, best friend Matt Damon says in a new profile for The Hollywood Reporter, we should not believe what we read online or in the tabloid press when it comes to Ben.
There is no other celebrity who is more misunderstood than Ben, his pal says in his defense. Since his 2004 split from Jennifer Lopez, he’s been portrayed as the bad guy in the media, even though he was never that. He hasn’t been allowed out of the box the press put him in, either.
Ben Affleck is a good guy
Then again, one would always expect a good friend to say this kind of things.
Matt Damon has been busy promoting “The Martian,” which opens in theaters this Friday, which means that he’s also been asked questions about his friend Ben and his very recent divorce from Jennifer Garner, his wife of 10 years.
Matt is not the kind to discuss actual private details that Ben may or may not have entrusted him with, but he will always defend him. Which is exactly what he does to THR, saying that the man he knows as Ben Affleck has nothing in common with the Ben Affleck persona constructed by the evil tabloid press.
“There’s nobody who’s more misunderstood. Ten years ago, the public image of him could not have been farther apart from who he actually is. It was like he was being cast in a role, that he was a talentless kind of meathead, with his whole relationship with Jennifer Lopez,” Damon says. “He just got cast as this person that he wasn’t. It was just really painful. It was painful to be his friend, because it wasn’t fair, you know? To my mind, nobody really got him at all.”
A few facts about the JLo split
Damon is right in saying that Ben Affleck has been portrayed as the bad guy in the media since his 2004 split from Jennifer Lopez, but there’s a context that goes with it.
For starters, during their romance, he was more than willing to have it play out in the media, from appearing in her music videos (and patting her famous posterior) to doing joint interviews in their house or gushing in interviews about their upcoming $2 million (€1.78 million) wedding. Or, you know, starring together in what’s got to be one of the worst movies ever, “Gigli.”
He proposed with a $2.5 million (€2.23 million) pink diamond ring, the details of which were discussed with the press at length.
In short, Ben Affleck was OK with having his private life documented in the press, as long as he was getting positive attention.
Then, weeks before the wedding, rumors started making the rounds that he was hooking up with exotic dancers in Vancouver, while she was away on business. He would later call off everything, days before the event, reportedly leaving Lopez devastated.
Yes, Ben Affleck has been made into the bad guy in the press, but whether he’s “misunderstood” is highly debatable.