To be a fly on the wall! Jennifer Garner stepped out for her first public event since splitting from husband Ben Affleck in June on Friday, Sept. 11, and the actress buddied up with an unlikely pal — Gwyneth Paltrow, one of Affleck’s other Hollywood exes.
Garner, 43, and Paltrow, 42, were all smiles as they posed for photos at a charity telethon event for Think It Up in Santa Monica, Calif. The charity is aimed at improving education in America by inspiring public school students to turn their passions into projects.
Both women kept their looks simple for the event, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the Think It Up logo. Garner’s wedding band was notably absent from her finger.
The twosome were joined by the likes of Justin Bieber, Seth Meyers, Jessica Biel, Halle Berry, Julie Chen, Terry Crews, and Kacey Musgraves for the star-studded event.
Paltrow and Affleck, 43, previously dated for three years back in 1997 following her very public split from Brad Pitt, and both Hollywood A-listers have spoken out about keeping relations amicable after the fact.
“He was not in a good place in his life to have a girlfriend,” the Iron Man actress told Howard Stern in an interview earlier this year. She added that her parents knew back then that the pair just weren’t a good fit.
“I think they appreciated how he’s super intelligent and he’s really talented and funny,” she said of her parents, the late Bruce Paltrow, and her mother, actress Blythe Danner. “They loved him, but they were okay with us not being together.”
Garner and Affleck were last spotted together with their three children — Violet, 9, Seraphina, 6, and Samuel, 3 — at Disney World for the actor’s 43rd birthday on Sunday, Aug. 16.
“This was all he wanted to do for his birthday, go to Disney World with his family and that included Jen,” a source told Us Weekly of the trip. “They planned this and all went to Orlando together.”
Paltrow and her husband of 10 years, Chris Martin, split last March. The pair share two children — daughter Apple, 9, and son Moses, 8.
