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Back in 2015, a photograph of Ben Affleck sporting a huge back tattoo made its way around the interwebs, and a good laugh was had by all.

Being the kind of guy who pretends he doesn’t care what anyone thinks but who actually lives for public adulation, Ben claimed the tattoo was fake.

Ben Affleck Winks
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He insisted the garish phoenix rising from the ashes was airbrushed on for a movie he was directing and starring in called Live By Night.

"[It’s] fake for a movie," Affleck very explicitly stated in a 2016 interview.

"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."

Since no one actually saw the film, no one pieced together that Ben’s Prohibition-era gangster never actually disrobes to reveal a giant, brightly-colored, anachronistic tattoo.

Rumors about the big ugly ink persisted, but Ben made headlines for so much other bad behavior that fans never launched a full-blown investigation.

Ben Affleck Looks Pissed
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Remarkably, Ben has kept his torso pretty well covered over the past two and a half years, but that might have more to do with his booze-bellied dad bod and less to do with hiding the big bird.

(Feel free to use that as a euphemism for sex, btw.)

Sadly, Beantown Benny slipped over the weekend when he removed his shirt for a beach scene in a movie he’s filming.

Hopefully, Ben’s character is the type of guy who collects samurai swords and lost his virginity to a prostitute at 29, because this tatt is not the sort of thing that can be edited out in post-production.

Ben Affleck Smiling
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Yes, we now know for sure that Ben was lying about the tattoo being a fake, and Twitter is having a field day.

"Don’t mock Ben Affleck’s phoenix tattoo. It symbolizes how he has risen from the ashes, reborn as a guy with a tattoo that sucks," tweeted Pixelated Boat.

"I’ve been following the Ben Affleck back tattoo drama more closely than the Mueller investigation," quipped Sophia Benoit.

"Ben Affleck’s back tattoo is, and I’m saying this without hyperbole, one of the funniest goddamn things I’ve ever seen in my entire life," Dashiell Driscoll opined.

All we need is Dril and DaShareZone to sound off on this thing, and all of Twitter will have had its say.

Ben Affleck at Premiere
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So how is Affleck reacting to ironically being roasted for a phoenix tattoo?

Well, thus far, he’s about the only one who hasn’t sounded off on it.

Even Ben’s ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, flamed his ass, telling Ellen DeGeneres that she "take[s] umbrage" at being represented as the ash from which Ben’s metaphorical phoenix arises.

Must suck to realize you spent a massive chunk of your life married to a guy who would not only get that fugly of a tattoo but would proceed to lie to the whole world about it.

Hmmm … we may have finally figured out what horrible revelation came to Garner at the Oscars.