Jennifer Garner recently told the “Shut Up Evan” podcast that paparazzi would go to dangerous lengths to get photos of her and her children.
“If I went through a yellow light, 15 cars would go through the red behind me,” Garner said. “They would drive up onto people’s lawns, even on a hillside. We were trying to have our little one play soccer, and the association asked us to stop because there were 20 cars coming. So it wasn’t just about us. It was just an industry that had gotten out of control.”
She added, “If you show up and you’re trying to get into the pediatrician and you have a sick kid on your shoulder and you’re scared and you can’t get into the door because you’re blocked by photographers, there’s something wrong with that, and the kids are paying the price.”
Garner also recalled a time when she saw kids “getting knocked over coming out of preschool by photographers who were so hungry to get at me or Ben [Affleck].” She went on to explain that, despite living in a community with many celebrities, the paparazzi would target her because she “had the kids.”
When asked by host Evan Katz if things ever got better, Garner said she still has two photographers who have been assigned to follow her for “20 plus years.” She says in that time, they’ve developed an “odd respect for each other.
“Like, there’s kind of a Stockholm syndrome thing,” Garner said. “And at the same time, I’ve called the cops on him a million times and been like, ‘Can you please just give me a walk around the block with my kids and my dog?’”
