Jennifer Garner opens up on the price of fame and how it’s affected her family

Acclaimed actor Jennifer Garner has opened up about how her and Ben Affleck’s fame has affected her and their three children, Violet, Seraphina, and Samuel over the years. Many of us will have spent a quiet evening settled down with a blanket and our best pillow to watch our favorite Jennifer Garner or Ben Affleck film. Once one of Hollywood’s golden couples after meeting on the set of the 2000 Michael Bay film, Pearl Harbor, popular actors Jennifer and Ben later went on to divorce in 2018. 

The former couple are understood to have remained on good terms since their split and co-parent their children. Ben has previously spoken out about how he feels his divorce helped shape his performances as an actor. Whilst Jennifer recently shared how the pandemic has had a heartbreaking impact on their children as she sees them “miss out on things”. 

Now the Hollywood star has given fans a deeply personal insight into how fame has affected her family. 

How did fame affect Jennifer Garner and her family?

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer opened up about the level of paparazzi attention she received, including when she was a new mom. 

"You'd go through a yellow light and 15, 20 cars would go through the red light behind you, driving up on the side of roads, and this is just for a mom and a kid," she said, talking about the early years. "We lived down a street that was chock-a-block full of actors, much more successful and famous and decorated than me, including Ben, and they'd all go by one by one, no problem, and then I'd go do a school run and it'd be 15 cars going with me. 

“I never had a day without them, and if I did, if I made it to a park by hiding in the bottom of the pool man's truck or something, then a nanny would see me there and call a number and they'd swarm”, Jennifer bravely shared.

The mom-of-three went on to explain that this incredibly intense-sounding situation also affected her and Ben's children.

“[I]t just put so much anxiety in our little family," she told The Hollywood Reporter, before revealing that her children were finally able to play at the beach this past summer, as the masks gave them all a level of anonymity.

Whilst Jennifer may have chosen life in the public eye, her children certainly didn’t and the Golden Globe-winning actor at one point gathered together local authorities and fellow moms, urging for better protection. 

Her eldest child, Violet, who was in kindergarten at the time, shared her perspective, with Jennifer revealing she said: “'We didn't ask for this. We don't want these cameras, they're scary.”

And it seems that the family’s pleas were heard a few years later. In 2013, Jennifer testified before the California State Assembly Committee on Public Safety in support of a bill intended to protect kids like her own. 

This important bill was signed into law later that year.