As Jennifer Garner promotes her new series The Five Star Weekend, she is also reflecting on the years of intense paparazzi attention that followed her and her family. On the Shut Up Evan podcast, the actress spoke candidly with host Evan Ross Katz about the strain that photographers placed on her children — and why she believes the situation went far beyond simple celebrity intrusion.
Garner Recounts Efforts to Protect Children From Photographers
Garner recalled joining Halle Berry in 2013 to advocate for new California laws designed to protect children from photographers. The actresses testified before the California State Assembly Committee on Public Safety, and the law was later passed.
Looking back, Garner said the issue felt urgent at the time because of how often photographers were putting her children, and others around them, at risk. The children she shares with ex-husband Ben Affleck are now older — one in college and two in high school — but she said the earlier years were especially difficult.
Before the law, she said, “it was totally ludicrous. And it felt like ‘Poor little me, my poor little kids who have everything in the world,’ but it was a danger to everyone around us.”
“It Was a Danger to Everyone Around Us”
Garner described situations that went well beyond being followed in public. “If I went through a yellow light, 15 cars would go through the red behind me. They would drive up onto people’s lawns, even on a hillside. We were trying to have our little one play soccer, and the association asked us to stop because there were 20 cars coming” to watch the games.
She added that the problem became especially upsetting when it interfered with everyday family life. “If you show up and you’re trying to get into the pediatrician and you have a sick kid on your shoulder and you’re scared and you can’t get into the door because you’re blocked by photographers, there’s something wrong with that. And the kids are paying the price. Kids were getting knocked over coming out of preschool by photographers who were so hungry to get to me or to Ben, trying to get to our kids.”
The actress acknowledged that her family is privileged and grateful for what Hollywood success has brought them, but said the situation still crossed a line. “at the same time, it just got silly.” She also pointed out that she lived on a street with other, more famous and successful people, “but they followed me because I had the kids. They wouldn’t follow Ben. They wouldn’t follow Matt Damon.”
A Complicated Relationship With Paparazzi Today
Garner said some of that pressure still exists now, revealing that she has two photographers who follow her daily and have “been assigned to me for 20-plus years, 25 years.” She said she has “a very interesting relationship” with one of them and that they have “an odd respect for each other.”
“We’ve had some really real-life moments together. I was followed by someone who, for whatever reason, I thought was going to hurt me, and I ran to him because I knew him and trusted him, and I knew that he and I would be OK,” she said. “There’s kind of a Stockholm Syndrome thing, and at the same time, I’ve called the cops on him a million times and been like, ‘Can you please just give me a walk around the block with my kids and my dog?’”
What Garner Is Working on Now
Garner is currently starring in The Five Star Weekend and is also producing the upcoming 13 Going on 30 reboot for Netflix.
