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Ben Affleck: Reactions to Howard Stern interview 'hurts my feelings'

Ben Affleck opened up to Howard Stern for Tuesday's episode of "The Howard Stern Show" on SiriusXM — about his divorce from Jennifer Garner, his rekindled romance with Jennifer Lopez and more — and he's feeling like it backfired.

The two-time Oscar winner explained why on Wednesday's "Jimmy Kimmel Live."

"It was this really cool, long-form, in-depth, it was a two-hour interview, and because the movie is about family and all this stuff that's meaningful to me, we talked a lot about my family and divorce and alcoholism and struggling with real things. How you have to be accountable and loving. How I work with my ex-wife and how I'm so proud of the way that we work together for our kids the best that we can for them. The irony is, I was really happy with it. I ended the interview, I was thrilled. I thought, 'Wow, I should do more honest, exploratory, self-evaluating things.

"And then I started seeing all this stuff come up on Twitter. I was like, 'What is this?' I sort of researched through it and then saw that one of these websites had done the clickbait thing of, like, 'You won't believe what he said! Click on this, come to our site.' I looked on it, and they had literally taken the conversation that I had had for two hours and made it seem as if I was saying the exact opposite of what I said. I had gone on and said how much we respect each other and cared about each other and cared about our kids and put them first and went through our stuff, and they said that I had blamed my ex-wife for my alcoholism and that I was trapped. Just made me out to be the worst, most insensitive, stupid, awful guy.

"I know people do this. I get it. I'm happy to be sad Batman. I'm happy to be Dunkin' Donuts and the meme. I understand. ... Really, [if] it's about my kids, I gotta just draw a line and be really clear: that's not true. I don't believe that. It's the exact opposite of who I am, what I believe, and I would never want my kids to think I would ever say a bad word about their mom. It hurts my feelings, man."

Affleck has been making the rounds to promote "The Tender Bar," directed by George Clooney and adapted from J.R. Moehringer's memoir by the same name. Affleck plays Uncle Charlie. Watch the trailer below.

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