"I would never want my kids to think I would ever say a bad word about their mom."
Ben Affleck has responded to claims he disrespected his ex-wife Jennifer Garner by claiming he would "probably still be drinking" if they stayed married.
During an appearance on
Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday night, the 49-year-old actor addressed
comments he made about their marriage on The Howard Stern Show.
While discussing his addiction to alcohol with Stern, Affleck said he felt "trapped" in his 10-year marriage to the
13 Going on 30 star.
“I was like ‘I can’t leave ’cause of my kids, but I’m not happy, what do I do?’ What I did was drink a bottle of scotch and fall asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution,” he said.
“...We tried, we tried because we had kids. Both of us felt like we don’t want this to be the model that our kids see of marriage.”
The comments drew mass criticism on social media as users accused Affleck of blaming his struggles with addiction on Garner.
In the Wednesday night interview, the actor told Kimmel he thought his conversation with Stern had been "meaningful" and didn't realise how the comments were perceived until after it aired.
The dad-of-three said that part of the discussion was taken out of context to make it seem "as if I was doing the exact opposite of what I said".
"I would never want my kids to think I would ever say a bad word about their mom," he said of the former couple's kids, Violet, 16, Seraphina, 12, and Samuel, 9.
"I had gone on and said how much we respect each other and cared about each other and cared about our kids and put them first."
Affleck added that the part of the interview that blew up made him out to be "the worst, most insensitive, stupid awful guy".
"I don't believe that. It's the exact opposite of who I am, what I believe," he concluded.
