Jennifer Garner says she avoids coverage of herself and ex Ben Affleck: 'I really work hard not to see either of us in the press'

Jennifer Garner suspects her ex-husband Ben Affleck is "quite meme-worthy" — but she's yet to actually come across any of the memes featuring the Air director (with a weary expression, with his beloved Dunkin', with new wife Jennifer Lopez at the Grammys ...).

In fact, Garner, 50, tries to steer clear of any and all coverage featuring herself or the man she shares three children with.

"I really work hard not to see either of us in the press," the actress, up next in The Last Thing He Told Me, tells Australian magazine Stellar. "It doesn’t make me feel good, even if it’s something nice about one of us.”

Affleck recently shrugged off his many meme-able moments in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter; "at a certain point, I am who I am," he told the outlet. Garner, meanwhile, would prefer to block them out altogether.

"I just try to forget that I’m out there in any way, and the same with anyone I love," she told Stellar. "I don’t need to see anyone in my family made into a meme."

Co-stars in Pearl Harbor and Daredevil, Garner and Affleck wed in 2005 and announced their plans to divorce in 2015; the split was finalized in 2018. And while the actors by all accounts have remained friendly throughout their breakup, Affleck's comments during a 2021 interview with Howard Stern — comments he has since said were misrepresented — got a lot of press pickup. Speaking to Stern about his battle with alcoholism, the Oscar winner said he'd "probably still be drinking" if the couple had stayed together.

The fallout from that interview has left him "very guarded," he told the Hollywood Reporter recently.

"I had a really painful experience where I did an interview where I was really vulnerable, and the entire pickup was something that was not only not right, it was actually the opposite of what I meant," he explained.

"To be clear, my behavior is my responsibility entirely," he added. "The point that I was trying to make was a sad one. Anyone who's been through divorce makes that calculus of, How much do we try? We loved each other. We care about each other. We have respect for each other. I was trying to say, 'Hey, look, I was drinking too much, and the less happy you become, whether it's your job, your marriage, it's just that as your life becomes more difficult, if you’re doing things to fill a hole that aren't healthy, you’re going to start doing more of those things.'

"I think I was pretty articulate about that," he added. "It was the New York Post who deliberately mischaracterized it in order to make it clickbait, and everyone else then picked it up, and it didn't matter how many times I said, 'I do not feel this way. I'm telling you, I don't blame my ex-wife for my alcoholism.' So, yeah. It's hard."