Jennifer Garner has opened up about how dangerous the paparazzi were when she was raising her children, revealing that photographers ran red lights, drove onto strangers’ lawns and even got her kicked out of a local soccer field just to take a photo of her family.
Speaking on the Shut up Evan podcast, the actress painted a picture of an industry that had spiraled completely out of control during her children’s early years.
“If I went through a yellow light, 15 cars would go through red behind me,” Garner said.
“They were driving on people’s lawns, even on hillsides. We were trying to get our little one to play football and the association asked us to stop because there were 20 cars coming. So it wasn’t just us. It was just an industry that had gotten out of control.”
The situation, Garner explained, could become truly frightening on a daily basis.
She described trying to bring a sick child into the pediatrician’s office while photographers blocked the door, and recalled children being run over outside the preschool by paparazzi desperate to get to her or her ex-husband, Ben Affleck.
Even living in a neighborhood full of celebrities didn’t spare her, she says she became a target specifically because she “had kids.”
Asked by host Evan Katz if things had improved over the years, Garner revealed that two photographers were assigned to follow her for more than two decades and that an unusual bond formed between them despite the circumstances.
She compared it to Stockholm syndrome, admitting that although she developed a “strange respect” for both men, she still had to call the police more times than she can count, just to have a moment of peace, walking her children and her dog around the neighborhood without an audience.
