While the world focuses on what Ben Affleck says about his second split from Jennifer Lopez, the star seems more concerned about that January visit from the FBI. Because it turns out the FBI was not at all concerned about him.
FBI agents visiting his house while the Palisades fire burned is yet another episode in the constantly unfolding soap opera that has played out around Affleck since he and Matt Damon won the original screenplay Oscar for “Good Will Hunting” in 1998.
You know the soap opera: The first Jen divorce. The back tattoo. The drinking thing. More drinking. The rebound. The reunion. The second Jen divorce. Sadfleck. And of course, the bit about Affleck’s technically excellent skills in the sack.
“Some people like to follow the soap opera … and you became a character in that soap opera,” the actor-director-producer told GQ in an interview published Tuesday. “You don’t write it, you don’t direct it, you don’t even know you’re in it, but you are.”
Affleck said he is aware that the soap opera is often absurd.
“The FBI did, in fact, visit my house. But this is pretty revealing, right? So I come home and I see there’s a story with sources that say, ‘Hey, the FBI was at your house.’ I’m like, ‘Well, this is strange.’ So I call them and say, ‘Hey, FBI, were you at my house? Do you want to talk to me?’”
We don’t know, the FBI says.
“I get transferred along. Finally, somebody who is actually responsible for what was happening was like, ‘Oh, we had no idea that was your house.’”
FBI agents were simply going door to door ringing the bell and seeing if the people who answered might be down to share anything they might have seen. Except Affleck’s door came with paparazzi lying in wait, and a story was born.
“Whoever wrote the story made up something about how it was related to an investigation about a drone that I guess did crash into one of the helicopters [actually, it was an airplane] two or three miles up Mandeville Canyon. Turns out, no, it wasn’t about that,” he said.
“So it’s like: You’ve seen this event about the FBI at my house. I had no idea,” he added. “My only involvement was to track it down, figure it out.”
In reality, Affleck says he’s just “a middle-aged guy,” or as GQ described it, “a twice-divorced father of three who commutes to an office most days.” Nothing newsworthy about his day-to-day life.
Except — maybe — the causes of the J. Lo divorce.
But Affleck debunks even that. “Yeah, there’s no scandal, no soap opera, no intrigue,” Affleck told GQ. “The truth is, when you talk to somebody, ‘Hey, what happened?’ Well, there is no: ‘This is what happened.’ It’s just a story about people trying to figure out their lives and relationships in ways that we all sort of normally do.”
So, nothing to see here. Move along, FBI. You have other doors to knock on.
