Being a famous celebrity means, to one degree or another, opening yourself up and allowing a part of your life to be on public display. Some celebrities are more open than others. Ben Affleck has always tried to keep part of his personal life personal, which is why he says he has a lot of empathy with the way Britney Spears has been treated in the press.
Affleck appeared on the This Past Weekend with Theo Von podcast, and the episode opened with a discussion of fame. The Accountant 2 actor admitted there are parts of celebrity that he doesn’t love, including dealing with the paparazzi. He knows firsthand what it’s like to have people following him around, which is why he says he’s always had empathy for the pop singer, who has been a favorite target of photographers for most of her life. Affleck said…
I really had a lot of empathy for Britney Spears because I remember that it seemed like, it’s not somebody that I knew or hung out with but just like everybody else you see all this shit that comes through.
From almost the moment Britney Spears came on the scene, she became one of the most in-demand stars in the world. Photographers seemed to be everywhere she went, and sometimes, they caught exactly the sort of material they wanted, such as when Spears shaved her head.
But as Affleck points out, that sort of attention can often be the thing that sets off the behavior. If the celebrities were left alone, different things would likely be happening. What the people watching the video don’t see is the way the celebrity was prodded into reacting. He continued…
That’s the first time that I thought this is a weird kind of unintentional but collective cruelty, where what’s taken out of the image that you see are the people around waving the stick at the tiger.
Britney Spears has continued to be a tabloid target even into her adulthood, where she’s not making music like she once did. Affleck, for his part, certainly saw the number of paparazzi following him around increase for the simple reason that he got back together with Jennifer Lopez. The public was basically able to follow along as the couple got divorced because there was no shortage of discussion on the topic, with plenty of eyes on the couple.
Ben Affleck says he understood that being part of Hollywood meant a certain amount of interest in him personally, but he certainly tries to draw a line. He even thinks that people knowing more about his personal life makes being an actor and playing a part harder. Some actors do a reasonably good job of keeping their private life private, though it certainly takes work, as there no indication that the paparazzi are going anywhere.
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