Jennifer Garner recently admitted that her family photo album is seriously lacking due to her children’s fear of cameras, an unfortunate result of constant paparazzi attention. The actress, 48, explained the heartbreaking situation to The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month.
According to Garner, the constant media attention “put so much anxiety in [her] little family.” We feel so bad for her!
Garner recalled some of the more traumatic paparazzi moments throughout the interview. According to the actress, the situation was most difficult with her first kid, Violet, because they lived in a popular celebrity neighborhood at the time.
“I’d go do a school run and it’d be 15 cars going with me,” she explained, “I never had a day without them, and if I did, if I made it to a park by hiding in the bottom of the pool man’s truck or something, then a nanny would see me there and call a number and they’d swarm.”
The constant attention had an impact on her daughter as well. When she was only in kindergarten, she spoke out about the “scary” cameras.
“Violet’s hyper-articulate — she is Ben Affleck’s daughter — and she stood up on a chair in a little velvet dress, with her hair a bit back and her glasses on and she didn’t say her R’s right, and she said: ‘We didn’t ask for this. We don’t want these cameras, they’re scary. The men are scary, they knock each other over and it’s hard to feel like a kid when you’re being chased.’ “
Garner and Affleck managed the attention on their family as best as they could, making space for how their children felt at any given moment.
“When they were smaller and there were things out there that were shocking, my request to them was always, ‘Let Dad and I talk you through whatever it is,’ ” she explained. “I’d tell them, ‘If you see an image on the front of a magazine, I’ll look at it with you and we’ll process all the scary feelings that come up together.’ “
As for the longterm effects of paparazzi, Garner says that her family, particularly her children, probably will not fully grasp them for some time.
She explained, “We’ll have to ask them when they’re older.”