Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck are doting parents and while they are notoriously private about their children, the Deep Water actor recently gave a rare insight into their personal lives. The former couple have a close knit family unit and have remained great friends since their separation in 2015. Ben has nothing but admiration for his ex-wife, and sweetly opened up about their oldest daughter Violet, 19, and how she's taking after her mom during an interview at the premiere of the film Kiss of the Spider-Woman, which he produced.
Talking to Access Hollywood, Ben was asked about Violet's recent testimony at the United Nations, where she spoke about the need for clean air and the use of masks to help prevent long Covid. This is something the teenager has spoken out about on several occasions. Praising his firstborn, Ben told Access Hollywood: "I could not be more proud of my children. I can't even tell you." He continued: "[Violet] takes after her mom. She's spectacular. And I'm very lucky that I've got a great partner and that we got great kids. It's the joy of my life and I'm just very, very lucky. And it makes me happy every day."
Ben and Jennifer are also parents to Fin, 16, and 13-year-old Samuel. Violet had spoken at the UN on September 23, while wearing a K95 mask. She said: "We are told by leaders across the board that we are the future. But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes." Violet previously wrote an essay for her college, Yale, in their Global Health Review, which was published in May.
In her essay titled A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles, Violet wrote: "I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room." "She was shell-shocked, astonished at the scale of destruction in the neighborhood where she raised myself and my siblings," she added. The college student continued: "I was surprised at her surprise: as a lifelong Angelena and climate-literate member of Generation Z, my question had not been whether the Palisades would burn but when."
Violet is also a health advocate and spoke to the LA County Board of Supervisors in July 2024 about implementing mask mandates to protect the population after the COVID-19 pandemic. "I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019," she said. "I'm okay now, but I saw first-hand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief. To confront the long COVID crisis, I demand mask availability, air filtration and far-UVC light in government facilities, including jails and detention centers, and mask mandates in county medical facilities."
Violet and her siblings were raised in LA, and while Fin and Samuel are still living at home, the 19-year-old is in her second year at Yale, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Jennifer admitted it was difficult getting ready to say goodbye to her oldest child in the leadup to her departure, but now the family have got used to their new normal, with quality time together being extra special. The actress previously gave an insight into her children's personalities during an appearance on Dr. Aliza Pressman's podcast, Raising Good Humans. "Funny is number one. Please be funny, that's why I had you," she joked. Luckily, it appears she got her wish: "Check, check, check, that's one thing, thank god!" she concluded.