Ben Affleck has spent so much of his adult life as tabloid fodder that some people probably know more about the alleged contents of his Dunkin’ order than they do about some of his movies. Bennifer alone generated enough headlines for several lifetimes, and even relatively mundane activities tend to become internet events. Remember the Sad Affleck meme and those miserable-looking cigarette photos? Of course you do. Well, someone finally asked him about all that tabloid ink spilled on him and he’s more candid than I’d ever have guessed.During a new installment of GQ’s One More Question, the outlet brought up one particularly bizarre stretch in early 2025, when the former Batman performer was simultaneously dealing with rumors that his home had burned in the Los Angeles fires and that the FBI had raided the property. His response was much more resigned than angry, as he explained:I have them much less frequently now, which is nice, but there are still occasionally these strange flareups. At the time, there were both rumors that the FBI had raided my home and that my house had burned down. They can’t both be true. It’s like all these things, and then none of it turns out to be true, and nobody remembers it. That particular FBI story eventually had a much less exciting explanation. Affleck later said agents had simply been going door to door in the area asking residents whether they had information connected to an investigation. Because paparazzi happened to be outside his home, photos of federal agents at the Armageddon actor’s front door became something considerably more dramatic when parceled out online.The Gone Girl star seems fascinated by how quickly that kind of misinformation gets absorbed, but also forgotten. There is a kind of cultural amnesia or something where just there’s maybe so much like flotsam and jetsam that stuff comes up and we all kind of hear about it or read about it. And then there’s not really a follow up. It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, did that turn out to be real or not? I don’t know.’That feels uncomfortably accurate. A bizarre celebrity rumor can dominate social media for 12 hours, get corrected two days later and then live forever inside somebody’s vague memory as “Didn’t that happen?” What surprised me most is how little Ben seems interested in fighting to correct the narrative anymore.(Image credit: Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal)When the host jokingly wondered whether the actor had finally become enough of a middle-aged dad to age out of the tabloid frenzy, the Jersey Girl star said he has been hoping for exactly that for roughly 20 years. At 54, with three children and decades of fame behind him, he sounded perfectly comfortable with the possibility that the celebrity microscope might eventually move somewhere else.I mean, I’ve been hoping that’d be the case for 20 years. It’s bound to be the case. We’re all moving inevitably toward irrelevance and death. The former doesn’t seem all that unappealing to me. The latter, I’d like to forestall a little bit. But the notion of relevance as an abstract thing to be desired strikes me as, I don’t know: Be careful what you wish for. That is quite a journey for someone whose relationships, career choices and facial expressions have all become national news at various points. The Animals director also made clear that he doesn't see himself as some grand victim of fame. He acknowledged the unusual life he's been able to live and suggested that enough ridiculousness eventually makes it easier to shrug off.These days, Affleck has plenty else occupying him. He is back behind the camera for Animals, which he directed and stars in alongside Kerry Washington. The thriller arrives Oct. 9 as part of the 2026 movie calendar schedule, while Affleck continues to run Artists Equity, the production company he co-founded with Matt Damon.