Jennifer Garner speaks on Ben Affleck split for first time: 'He’s the love of my life. What am I going to do about that?'

Jennifer Garner has given a poignant account of how her life has changed seven months after announcing her 10-year marriage to Ben Affleck was over.

The Dallas Buyers Club actress spoke candidly about their decision to separate for the first time during an interview with Vanity Fair, where Garner insisted their marriage was genuine.

“It wasn’t for the cameras,“ she said. ”And it was a huge priority for me to stay in it. And that did not work.”

Their relationship was closely scrutinised by the press, with tabloids intrigued by the semblance of normality their domestic life appeared to have. The more they shunned glitzy events for everyday family outings, trips to coffee shops and food shopping, the more the media’s fascination with them grew. This fascination was bolstered by the sincere comments they often made during interviews that painted a less glamorous but fundamentally more honest picture of marriage as work.

Their split after a decade together was heralded as the end of an era for celebrity news, with Time summarising the wider significance in a bleak 'Bennifer' obituary: “The Garner-Affleck storyline, in the celebrity press, was one that proved no matter how hard celebrities try to be boring - no matter how close to 100 per cent of their time they spent on couples’ trips to Starbucks - celebrities will always exist as templates onto which we can project our darker impulses.”

Garner has since vowed to stay offline after the media storm erupted around news of their separation, a storm exacerbated by reports of an affair with their nanny, Christine Ouzounian, which Affleck’s camp strenuously denied. But a year later, tabloid interest is still piqued by their convivial relationship, shared custody of their three children and holidays together.

“Let me just tell you something,“ she told VF. ”We had been separated for months before I ever heard about the nanny. She had nothing to do with our decision to divorce. She was not a part of the equation. Bad judgment? Yes. It’s not great for your kids for [a nanny] to disappear from their lives.

“He’s the most brilliant person in any room, the most charismatic, the most generous. He’s just a complicated guy. I always say, ‘When his sun shines on you, you feel it.’ But when the sun is shining elsewhere, it’s cold. He can cast quite a shadow.”

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Garner said she laughed along with everyone else at Ricky Gervais’s Golden Globes introduction for Matt Damon as “the only person who Ben Affleck hasn’t been unfaithful to”. “No one needs to hate him for me. I don’t hate him. Certainly we don’t have to beat the guy up. Don’t worry—my eyes were wide open during the marriage. I’m taking good care of myself.

The 43-year-old was keen to make one thing clear during her interview: she has no regrets. “I would go back and remake that decision. I ran down the beach to him, and I would again. You can’t have these three babies and so much of what we had. He’s the love of my life. What am I going to do about that?"

As to his "mid-life crisis" full back tattoo, she had this to say: "You know what we would say in my hometown about that? ‘Bless his heart'. A phoenix rising from the ashes. I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes."