While she was doing the press tours for her new series Five star weekend getawayJennifer Garner is also getting more realistic about some of the challenges she’s faced while dealing with paparazzi.
During his appearance on Shut up, Ivan podcast, Garner spoke with host Evan Ross Katz about joining Halle Berry in 2013 as they defended California’s new laws to protect children from photographers. The two actresses testified before the California Assembly Public Safety Committee, and the law was later passed.
The children she shares with ex-husband Ben Affleck are now much older — one in college and two in high school — but Garner reflects on how when they were younger, before the law, “it was absolutely ridiculous. And I felt like ‘poor my poor little kids who have everything in the world,’ but he was a danger to everyone around us.”
She went on to detail how, “If I went through a yellow light, 15 cars would go through the red light behind me. They would drive into people’s lawns, even on a hill. We were trying to get our little boy to play soccer, and the federation asked us to stop because there were 20 cars coming” to watch the matches.
Garner continued, “If you come in and try to get to the pediatrician and you have a sick kid on your shoulder and you’re scared and you can’t get in the door because the paparazzi are blocking you, there’s something wrong with that. And the kids are paying the price. Kids were getting beat up walking out of preschool by the paparazzi who were too hungry to get to me or Ben, trying to get to our kids.”
The star admitted that the family is lucky and grateful for everything their success in Hollywood has brought them, but “at the same time, it’s getting ridiculous.” She noted that she lived on a street with more famous and successful people, “but they followed me because I had kids. They didn’t follow Ben. They didn’t follow Matt Damon.”
Garner also explained what things are like right now, revealing that she has two photographers following her every day who have been “hired for me for over 20 years, 25 years.” One in particular has a “very interesting relationship” with him, saying they “have a weird respect for each other.”
“We had some real-life moments together. I was followed by someone who I thought, for whatever reason, was going to hurt me, and I ran to him because I knew him and trusted him, and I knew he and I would be okay.” “There’s a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, and at the same time, I’ve called the police on him a million times and said, ‘Can you please let me walk around the building with my kids and my dog?’
Garner is currently starring Five star weekend getaway And also the upcoming production 13 going to 30 Replay for Netflix.
