Jennifer Garner opened up about how dangerous paparazzi became while she was raising her children, revealing that photographers would run red lights, drive across strangers’ lawns and even kick her off a local soccer field just to take a photo of her family.
Talking about the shut up evan On the podcast, the actress described an industry that had gotten completely out of control during her children’s early years.
“If I went through a yellow light, 15 cars would go through the red one behind me,” Garner said.
“They were driving onto people’s lawns, even on the hillsides. We were trying to get our little boy to play soccer, and the association asked us to stop him because 20 cars were coming. So it wasn’t just us. It was just an industry that had gotten out of control.”
The situation, Garner explained, could become truly frightening in everyday moments.
She described trying to take a sick child to the pediatrician’s office while photographers blocked the door, and recalled paparazzi desperate to get to her or her ex-husband, Ben Affleck, running over children outside the preschool.
Even living in a celebrity-filled neighborhood didn’t spare her, she says she became a target specifically because “I had kids.”
When asked by host Evan Katz if things had improved over the years, Garner revealed that two photographers had been assigned to follow her for more than two decades and that an unusual bond had formed between them despite the circumstances.
He compared it to Stockholm syndrome, admitting that even though he has developed a “strange respect” for the couple, he has still had to call the police more times than he can count just to have a moment of peace, walking his children and dog around the block without an audience.
