Ben Affleck refuses to be fazed by negativity. After The New Yorker published a critical article about his massive back tattoo, the two-time Oscar winner, 45, took to Twitter with a sharp response.
“@NewYorker I’m doing just fine,” Affleck, who rarely uses social media, tweeted on Thursday, March 29. “Thick skin bolstered by garish tattoos.”
@NewYorker I’m doing just fine. Thick skin bolstered by garish tattoos.
— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) March 29, 2018
The Batman actor first unveiled his tattoo of a colorful phoenix on the Los Angeles set of Live by Night in December 2015. At the time, Vanity Fair described the ink as a “midlife crisis tattoo” during an interview with his estranged wife, Jennifer Garner, who responded, “A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario? I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes.”
Though a source previously confirmed to Us Weekly that Affleck’s tattoo was authentic, he claimed to Extra in 2016 that it was actually “for a movie.” However, he put it on full display while filming a shirtless scene for his upcoming Netflix movie, Triple Frontier, on a beach in Hawaii on March 15.
The New Yorker criticized the tattoo and the Gone Girl star’s weight in its article, which was published on Saturday, March 24. The magazine called the permanent art “garish” and “gargantuan” before noting that Affleck’s “gut is pooching outward in a way that … tends to read as Homer Simpsonesque.”
But one person who doesn’t have a problem with the tattoo is Affleck’s best friend, Matt Damon. “It’s not one man’s job to tell another man what he can do to his back,” the 47-year-old actor said on The Daily Show With Trevor Noah on March 21. “You know, I support him in all of his artistic expression.”
