Nearly two years after claiming that a massive phoenix tattoo on his back was fake and something he only got “for a movie,” Ben Affleck was spotted with the intricate, multi-colored design while going shirtless on a beach in Hawaii.
Affleck, 45, was photographed during a recent beach workout session with his co-stars in the upcoming film “Triple Frontier”: Charlie Hunnam, Oscar Isaac and Garrett Hedlund.
So, yes, it certainly appears that the tattoo is real. This is the infamous tattoo that his estranged wife Jennifer Garner scoffed at and his ex-fiancee Jennifer Lopez called “awful.”
People on Twitter had similar reactions to the tattoo:
https://twitter.com/RafiDAngelo/status/975400075949150208
i've reached my limit https://t.co/5h8hbPE3Vq pic.twitter.com/cEa4wk0A04
— hunter harris (@hunteryharris) March 16, 2018
Affleck was first spotted with the tattoo in December 2015, while working on the set of “Live by Night,” Us Weekly reported. The tattoo shows the mythical bird rising from the ashes and spreading its wings up and over the actor’s entire back and shoulders.
At the time, Us Weekly reported that the “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” actor got the large-scale tattoo, which symbolizes rebirth, sometime after he and Garner first announced they were splitting up after 10 years of marriage.
The pair share children Violet, 12, Seraphina, 9, and Samuel, 6, and finally filed for divorce last April.
In March 2016, Affleck denied the phoenix tattoo was real, telling Extra TV’s Mario Lopez that he just got a fake, temporary tattoo for a movie.
“I actually do have a number of tattoos … but I try to have them in places where you don’t have to do a lot of cover up … they get sort of addictive, tattoos, after awhile,” Affleck told Lopez.
People magazine said that the actor’s other body art reportedly includes a dolphin on his right hip, which covers up the name of his high-school sweetheart. He’s also been seen with barbed wire across his right bicep.
But now, Affleck has been outed as a tattoo fibber, given the photos that were taken of him and his co-stars this past week on the Hawaiian beach.
Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund in one frame IM SO DONE pic.twitter.com/b7q1ayFPrg
— 𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐣𝐢 🌻 (@horamiji) March 16, 2018
Meanwhile, as much as Affleck tried to claim that the tattoo was fake, the two Jennifers in his life still felt moved to offer their opinions.
In a 2016 interview with Vanity Fair, Garner suggested she definitely wasn’t a fan.
“You know what we would say in my hometown about that? ‘Bless his heart,’ ” she told the publication in talking about the end of their marriage. She also addressed its symbolism, saying, “A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario? I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes.”
Meanwhile, Jennifer Lopez, who dated Affleck from 2002 to 2004 and who was engaged to him, called the tattoo “awful” during an interview with Andy Cohen on “Watch What Happens Live.”
“His tattoos always have too many colors, they shouldn’t be so colorful,” she said. “They should be cooler.”
