Ben Affleck took matters into his own hands when his 6-year-old son said that he didn’t share his father’s love for the New England Patriots.
Affleck, 46, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday night, during which host Jimmy Kimmel congratulated the lifelong Boston sports fan on the Patriots’ Super Bowl win earlier this month.
On Feb. 3, the Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams 13-3 to take home their sixth Super Bowl win at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta, Georgia.
“You know, what happens is you get used to a thing like that, not to rub it in,” the actor joked, referencing Boston’s successful year in sports, including the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory and the Boston Red Sox’s World Series win.
RELATED: Tom Brady and the New England Patriots Win Super Bowl LIII
But Affleck was surprised when one of his kids turned out not to be so excited about Boston sports teams.
“The game before … the World Series game, I took my kids to the game,” the actor told Kimmel. “On the way to the game, I was kind of giving my kids a pep talk — my kids are 13, 10 and 6, about to be 7 — and I was telling my 6-year-old, my son in particular, you know, ‘We’re really excited because we’re from Boston and this is a big deal and the Red Sox’ and I’m giving him the whole history.”
“And he listens to me and then he stops and goes, ‘Dad. You’re from Boston. I’m from L.A.,’ ” Affleck continued. “And I had a full existential crisis. ‘I failed, I’m a bad father, this is a disaster, I don’t know what to do!’ “
Affleck has three children with ex-wife Jennifer Garner: daughters Violet, 13, and Seraphina, 10, and son Samuel, who will turn 7 later in February.
“There’s a certain sort of tragic pain that you carry with you as a person from Boston that you except to imbue to your children that they’re gonna carry on,” Affleck said, “like we suffer through the cold and the misery and lose big sporting events.”
But Affleck had a plan to get his son back on the right track.
“I tell you what, I was going to put an end to that,” the actor laughed. “Because once my son starts telling me, ‘I’m from L.A.,’ I know some guys — a lot of guys from Boston in L.A. who do work in the trades, that kind of thing, trying to make it out here. So I got the New England discount — got some friends that were painters, carpenters, that kind of thing _ to do a little work in my son’s room and help him understand where he comes from. If not literally, then spiritually.”
RELATED: Is Ben Affleck Done Playing Batman? Actor Hints His Run Is Over as New Film Is Announced
Affleck then showed Kimmel pictures of his son’s room fully redecorated with Patriots gear — including a giant football slide, a chair shaped like quarterback Tom Brady’s head and life-sized poster of Brady on the wall.
“My ex-wife thinks it’s creepy,” Affleck laughed, joking, “I think it’s appropriate for grown men to make totems and idols out of other grown men.”
“So what you did is, once your son indicated that maybe he’d be interested in rooting for the teams that he grew up around, you decided to attack him with interior decorating,” Kimmel said.
“That’s what we do with our children!” Affleck laughed. “We take our neuroses and we put it on them … If this [clip] is still on YouTube by the time my son’s in therapy, he can just show them the show — ‘Do I have to say anymore? This is my dad.’ “
Affleck added that he had sent a photo of the room to Brady.
“He was very nice, he sent my son a football and a jersey, signed,” the actor told Kimmel, joking, “There was a mistake with the jersey, so I have to send it back. It said five-time Super Bowl winner.”
Source: Read Full Article