Jennifer Garner is sharing a startling example of how paparazzi attention disrupted her children’s everyday lives.
The 54-year-old actress said her family was asked to stop attending one child’s soccer practices because photographers were arriving in a caravan of cars. Jennifer shares Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14, with ex-husband Ben Affleck.
Find out what Jennifer recently said about co-parenting their three children with Ben.
“The [soccer] association asked us to stop [attending] because there were 20 cars coming [to practice],” she recalled on Evan Ross Katz‘s Netflix podcast Shut Up Evan. “It wasn’t just about us. It was an industry that had gotten out of control.”
Jennifer previously revealed how the paparazzi affected the family and left her children afraid of cameras.
Jennifer says other children were placed in danger
Jennifer described the photographers’ behavior as “ludicrous” and said the pursuit extended to schools and medical appointments.
“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 the hillside,” she said.
The Alias alum also recalled photographers knocking children over outside preschool and blocking a pediatrician’s entrance while she was trying to bring in a sick child.
Although Jennifer acknowledged the privilege her career provided, she believes she received disproportionate attention because was “the chick with the kids.”
“They wouldn’t follow Ben,” she explained. “They wouldn’t follow Matt Damon.”
Jennifer and Halle Berry previously testified in support of California’s Senate Bill 606, known as the “paparazzi bill,” which strengthened protections for children targeted because of their parents’ careers, per Los Angeles Times.
Jennifer‘s new series The Five-Star Weekend is streaming now on Peacock, find out whether a second season is in the works.
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