Ben Affleck circumventing rules and regulations to make himself look better? No, you don’t say! It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that Ben Affleck cares about his image, almost to the point where he’s willing to burn bridges to do so.
For example, Ben Affleck was profiled on PBS’ Finding Your Roots last year, and they found out that Ben was descended from slave owners. I mean, it’s not a big deal, right? A LOT of people in the US were descended from slave owners, millions obviously, especially if they have ancestry that goes back a few generations. That’s one of the ugly legacies of slavery.
Now, the show was hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., who admitted that Ben Affleck actually asked that the information about his slave-owning ancestors NOT be included in the segment. This information leaked in the Sony email hacks [the gift that keeps on giving], where Henry Gates wrote an email stating, “Confidentially, for the first time, one of our guests has asked us to edit out something about one of his ancestors–the fact that he owned slaves. Now, four or five of our guests this season descend from slave owners, including [documentary filmmaker] Ken Burns. We’ve never had anyone ever try to censor or edit what we found. He’s a megastar. What do we do?”
Henry also adds that he believes that Ben has bad management, since this is something that celebrities shouldn’t even be focused on covering up. Ben Affleck has a lot to hide – not the least being his alleged infidelity, his gambling addiction, and any number of rumored vices – but the fact that he had ancestors that were slave owners? People wouldn’t even care about that, or if they did, Ben could have easily redirected the conversation to focus on the issue in a thoughtful, insightful, affecting manner – instead of just avoiding the issue completely. Oh, Benny boy.
Ben Affleck: FameFlynet