Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner have reunited to spend Thanksgiving as a family.
The Gone Girl actor and 13 Going on 30 star, both 52, separated in 2015 after ten years of marriage and divorced three years later. They share three children: Violet, 18, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12.
For Affleck’s first Thanksgiving since his second wife Jennifer Lopez filed to divorce him in August, the Argo actor met with his first ex-wife to attend a charity event with their children.
The former couple donned hair nets and aprons to help The Midnight Mission serve thousands of free meals to the unhoused community in the Skid Row area on Thanksgiving.
They were joined by American Horror Story’s Sarah Paulson, Dancing with the Stars professional Sasha Farber and his partner Jenn Tran.
Affleck and Garner’s reunion comes shortly after the death of Juno star’s golden retriever Birdie, who she welcomed into her life just after her break up from Affleck in 2015.
“Birdie let us know on Thursday that she wasn’t feeling herself (a renowned foodie, Birdie never missed a meal),” she wrote. “We were surprised to learn that, not only was she very ill, she was at the end of her life.”
The news came shortly after Garner and Affleck’s daughter Violet returned from college for the Thanksgiving break. “The vet told us that dogs often hang on until their person comes home from college,” Garner explained.
“We believe Birdie did just that, so that we could pet her soft ears together and thank her for being the world’s best dog.”
Many fans have previously criticised Affleck’s treatment of Garner after he partially blamed his struggles with alcoholism on his marriage to her when speaking on The Howard Stern Show in 2021.
“We had a marriage that didn’t work,” Affleck told Stern. “This happens. It was somebody I love and respect but to whom I shouldn’t be married any longer... what I did was [I] drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the couch, which turned out not to be the solution.”
“Part of why I started drinking alcohol was because I felt trapped,” he added, although Affleck later clarified in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that his behaviour was “his responsibility”.
Garner remained offline as the media storm erupted around her split from Affleck in 2015. A year later, she told Vanity Fair the Mutant star was the love of her life.
“He’s the most brilliant person in any room, the most charismatic, the most generous,” she said. “He’s just a complicated guy. I always say, ‘When his sun shines on you, you feel it.’ But when the sun is shining elsewhere, it’s cold. He can cast quite a shadow.”
