Becoming a movie star is certainly not without its perks.
One big downside, however, is the loss of privacy many stars face, particularly those whose candid photos can fetch big bucks by tabloids. This results in those stars being relentlessly stalked by papparazzi, a phenomenon that Jennifer Garner has experienced on a firsthand and very intimate level.
Protecting Children
Garner, currently starring in Peacock series “Five Star Weekend,” recently appeared on Netflix‘s “Shut Up Evan” podcast, where she shared some anecdotes about what that paparazzi attention had been like for her and her children.
Back in 2013, Garner joined Halle Berry to advocate for legislation that would protect children from paparazzi. The two stars testified before the California State Assembly Committee on Public Safety and made an impact; the law was subsequently passed, making it illegal to photograph children — particularly those of celebrities.
A ‘Totally Ludicrous’ Situation
As Garner explained (via The Hollywood Reporter), when her children were younger in the years before the law was passed, “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.”
In fact, the situation grew so fraught that it wasn’t just her and her kids who were at risk.
According to Garner, “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 kids’ soccer games.
‘Kids Were Getting Knocked Over’
The paparazzi situation grew so intense that Garner was followed everywhere.
“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,” she observed.
“And the kids are paying the price,” she observed. “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.”
‘It Just Got Silly’
During the podcast, Garner conceded that while wealth and fame of her and ex-husband Ben Aflleck have afforded their children a privileged lifestyle, “at the same time, it just got silly.”
As she recalled, during the period she was married to Affleck, they lived in a star-studded neighborhood packed with celebrities. However, she found herself singled out, explaining that “they followed me because I had the kids. They wouldn’t follow Ben. They wouldn’t follow Matt Damon.”
Things Are Better Now
These days, now that the legislation prevents the kind of harassment that her children grew up with, there are still two photographers who stake her out on a daily basis. The shutterbugs, she said, have “been assigned to me for 20-plus years, 25 years.”
In fact, she revealed that she’d developed “a very interesting relationship” with one of them, admitting they “have an odd respect for each other.”
She recalled: “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. 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?’”
