The Uncomfortable Joke Ben Affleck Made During An Interview

Ben Affleck is, by all means, a good actor, but he's not a very good interviewee. There have been a handful of instances where he likely didn't think about the impact of his words before saying them and times where his jokes didn't pan out as well as he'd hoped.

For starters, his most recent appearance on "The Howard Stern Show" landed him in hot water with fans everywhere when Affleck got candid about his struggle with alcohol addiction and insinuated he probably would not have gotten better if he had still been married to ex-wife Jennifer Garner. "Part of why I started drinking was because I was trapped. I was, like, 'I can't leave 'cause of my kids, but I'm not happy. What do I do?'" Affleck said at the time.

The backlash he received from his comment got so intense, in fact, that Affleck had to clarify his statement and apologize for the interview, as he was supposedly taken out of context. On "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," he said that people likely nitpicked the interview because he had "gone on and said how much we [Affleck and Garner] respect each other and cared about each other and cared about our kids and put them first and went through our stuff," Affleck said. "I would never want my kids to think I would ever say a bad word about their mom."

But this isn't the only time Affleck's poor choice of words landed him in the hot seat.

Ben Affleck has been part of the entertainment industry for nearly four decades now, so you would think he'd be an expert in interviews. But one incident during his "Justice League" press junket proved otherwise.

In 2017, during the height of the #MeToo movement, a clip of the actor alongside his co-stars Henry Cavill, Jason Momoa, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, and Ray Fisher made rounds on the internet. They were interviewed by MTV UK's Sophie Boyden at the time and were asked which superheroes they would want to join the Justice League if they were given a choice.

Affleck said that he'd want to have Black Canary join the team because they "could use more women." When Fisher chimed in that he'd love to have Zatanna on board, Affleck joked that it's probably because of "the fishnets." The interview took a turn for the worse when Boyden asked how the cast would feel if someone like Supergirl joined the team. Fisher explained how they would evolve into a "different dynamic," to which Affleck responded, "Are you following the news at all?" with a laugh, referring to Hollywood's pervasive sexual misconduct problems.

Word about the interview got out fast and Ben Affleck was immediately under fire for the tasteless comment he made in the interview. "ben affleck Casually making a joke abt the sexual assault allegations in Hollywood is like Next level trash," tweeted one user. "ben affleck making a joke abt all the news that came out of him harassing women is the epitome of straight white male privilege," said another.

What's ironic is that a month prior to the controversial interview, Affleck made a pledge to stop profiting off his Harvey Weinstein-backed films to non-profit organizations. "Any further residuals that I get from a Miramax or a Weinstein movie will go either to FI or to RAINN," Affleck said in an interview with Fox 5 DC, via Indiewire. "I just didn't want to cash any more checks from the guy, you know?

It's also worth noting that Affleck himself was accused of sexual harassment by former "Total Request Live" host and "One Tree Hill" star Hilarie Burton. The actor revealed that Affleck had groped her during an interview years ago. He subsequently apologized to her publicly on Twitter: "I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize."