Ben Affleck has come under fire after saying that he would probably still be drinking if he had stayed married to actress Jennifer Garner.
The 49-year-old actor made the comments about his failed marriage on Tuesday on ‘The Howard Stern Show’ and also admitted to being hesitant about rekindling his relationship with ex-fiancée Jennifer Lopez.
“We probably would've ended up at each other's throats. I probably still would've been drinking,” Affleck said, referring to his marriage to Garner.
“Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped … I was like, 'I can't leave because of my kids, but I'm not happy, what do I do?' And what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution,” he said.
Affleck went to rehab in 2018 because of alcohol addiction.
He also said that they both tried to make things work for the sake of their three kids.
“Ultimately, we tried, we tried, we tried because we had kids, but both of us felt like we didn’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage,” Ben added.
Angry netizens have taken to social media critising the actor for blaming his ex-wife, instead of assuming responsibility for his own actions.
One Twitter user thought his statement was a "cheap shot", others accused him of playing the victim card to gain publicity ahead of the release of his upcoming movie 'The Tender Bar' directed by George Clooney.
Some also posted an old picture of the couple and reminded him that it was Jennifer who drove him to a rehab even though they'd separated three years before.
Affleck rekindled his romance with his ex, singer Jennifer Lopez, in spring 2021 after she split from her fiance Alex Rodriguez.