Ben Affleck Gets Real About Paparazzi and Britney Spears: ‘Collective Cruelty’

Ever feel like you just need some space and someone won’t stop following you? Now imagine that—but every day—and you’re just trying to live your life. Welcome to the world of being a celebrity, where the paparazzi never seem to take a day off.

Ben Affleck knows that pressure all too well. On an episode of This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, the actor opened up about how overwhelming it can be to have photographers constantly in your face—and how he especially felt for Britney Spears during the height of her media storm.

“A long time ago, years and years ago, I really had a lot of empathy for Britney Spears because I remember it seemed like — I mean [she’s] not someone I knew or hung out with — but just like everybody else you see all this s--- that comes through,” Affleck recalled.

Having dealt with relentless paparazzi himself, Affleck could see what Britney was going through—even if he wasn’t close to her. “But having had my own experiences myself, I knew these are people who are following her around at a time where she may or may not have been having difficulty.”

He was clear that he didn’t claim to know exactly what Spears was dealing with: “I didn’t know her,” he said. But he did understand the stress of being hounded. “The cycle of having people harangue you and yell at you and hassle you and follow you” just to stir up drama is all too familiar.

He compared it to someone trying to annoy an animal on purpose: “That’s the first time I thought this is kind of a weird, unintentional — I think culturally — but kind of collective cruelty where what’s taken out of the image that you see are the people around waving the stick at the tiger or poking on it or whatever and all you see is the growling animal or whatever it is,” Affleck explained.

“But like a part of that is because somebody’s coming around and hitting on it or whatever to make it get active and that’s when you think, ‘Okay, this is not really news, it’s not even real. It’s not what would be happening if this effect wasn’t taking place,’” he added.

And he’s not alone in thinking it’s gotten out of hand. Many celebs have spoken up about how paparazzi often cross major boundaries—snapping photos of their kids, invading their private homes, and generally making everyday life feel like a circus.