Jennifer Garner , the actress, who has been separate from ex Ben Affleck since last summer, sat down with Vanity Fair for their March issue to discuss her family, men and moving on in an interview that debuted online on Friday.
Don’t underestimate #JenniferGarner https://t.co/RfpplTc12t pic.twitter.com/HAcnDnI0m8
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) February 27, 2016
When Jennifer Garner’s separation from her husband of 10 years, Ben Affleck, was announced, the actress couldn’t watch it play on screens. “I turned on CNN one day, and there we were,” she told Vanity Fair in her first interview touching on the divorce. “I just won’t do it anymore. I took a silent oath with myself last summer to really stay offline. I am totally clueless about all of it. Ben says, ‘Oh, you just don’t care,’ and I say, ‘No, it’s the opposite.’ It hurts me so much, and I care so much.” The actress said that instead of paying attention to what’s being said on the Internet, she does things that distract her, like playing the piano or taking dance classes. They’re things that she has loved since she was a child.
“It was a real marriage,” she told Vanity Fair. “It wasn’t for the cameras. And it was a huge priority for me to stay in it. And that did not work.” “It’s not Ben’s job to make me happy,” she told the magazine. “The main thing is these kids — and we’re completely in line with what we hope for them. Sure, I lost the dream of dancing with my husband at my daughter’s wedding. But you should see their faces when he walks through the door. And if you see your kids love someone so purely and wholly, then you’re going to be friends with that person.”
“No one needs to hate him for me,” she continued. “I don’t hate him.”
She also said that if she were to do it all over again, she would.
“I didn’t marry the big fat movie star; I married him, and I would go back and remake that decision,” she insisted. “I ran down the beach to him, and I would again. You can’t have these three babies and so much of what we had. He’s the love of my life. What am I going to do about that? He’s the most brilliant person in any room, the most charismatic, the most generous. He’s just a complicated guy. I always say, ‘When his sun shines on you, you feel it.’ But when the sun is shining elsewhere, it’s cold. He can cast quite a shadow.”
As for the rumors about Affleck’s infidelity with their nanny Christine, Garner insisted that that wasn’t the reason for their separation.
“Let me just tell you something,” she said to Vanity Fair. “We had been separated for months before I ever heard about the nanny. She had nothing to do with our decision to divorce. She was not a part of the equation. Bad judgment? Yes. It’s not great for your kids for [a nanny] to disappear from their lives.”
Dating is a maybe for Jennifer. “I don’t know, It’s just that [from] everyone that I know that is dating it just seems, well…. Men don’t call anymore…. I want flowers; I don’t want to text. What does that make me? What kind of dinosaur am I?” Her focus now is just moving forward. “I’m taking good care of myself.”
Read the full interview here.
Here’s what people have got to say about her and her interview:
#JenniferGarner on her divorce. Why is this the saddest thing I’ve ever read in my life. pic.twitter.com/BNAmJpTw1f
— Catie Warren (@catie__warren) February 26, 2016
I hate #BenAffleck for what he did to #JenniferGarner.
— hikergal (@hikergal333) February 27, 2016
That time #JenniferGarner compared her divorce from Ben to Jen & Ben #heartbreaking @VanityFair pic.twitter.com/3CRtXqcsFQ
— Dina Sartore-Bodo (@DeeBodes22) February 26, 2016
I love you #JenniferGarner heartbreaking… 💔 https://t.co/BtCrdtlUej
— Riss (@risserroonie410) February 27, 2016
From #BenAffleck to #JudeLaw to #RobbinWilliams to..!! Such love for the Nannies!!
Pretty much admire #JenniferGarner d way she’s handlin it— Siddharth Jain (@TweepleLeaf) February 27, 2016