Ben Affleck’s major appearance change revealed as he admits: ‘It was terrible’

Ben Affleck is no stranger to the prick of fresh ink — who could forget when he unveiled that massive, colorful back tattoo of a rising phoenix?

The 52-year-old recently opened up about his biggest tattoo regret, and it’s a design he got when he was only 16-years-old. During an interview on Complex’s GOAT Talk with his co-star Jon Bernthal, the star was asked about the worst piece of ink he ever got. 

“I have a ton of cover-ups, you know? I’ve had them removed, I’ve had cover-ups, over and over again,” he shared.

“But probably the worst was when — I was 16 or something, I thought I’d do a barbed wire thing,” he said, as he showed off his upper arm.

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“It was terrible,” he admitted. “So I was like, I better get something to cover that, and it started the process. I just don’t have them where you have to see them for work.”

Ben’s tattoos

The actor clarified in a March 2016 interview with Extra TV that his large phoenix back tattoo was fake and “for a movie”. However, he was photographed sporting the intricate piece of ink while filming on the beach for the movie Tr​iple Frontier in Hawaii back in March 2018.

The following year, the actor appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and revealed that the tattoo is in fact “meaningful”.  “It represents something important to me… It’s meaningful to me,” he shared.

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 “I like it. It’s something that I sort of kept private… I love my tattoo. I’m very happy with it.”

However, Ben’s ex-wife, Jennifer Lopez, wasn’t a fan of the design. “It’s awful,” she admitted on Watch What Happens Live in 2016. 

“And I would tell him that. What are you doing? It has too many colors! His tattoos always have too many colors. They shouldn’t be so colorful, you know what I mean? They should be, like, cooler.”

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The actor also has a small dolphin on his right hip and the mysterious initials “OV” on his right shoulder blade. The phrases “MOH NON TE” and “TA OR” are written above and below the initials. 

To commemorate their first Valentine’s Day as a married couple, J-Lo and Ben each got tribute tattoos for one another. The singer got an infinity sign with an arrow going through it on her left ribcage. Meanwhile, Ben got two crossing arrows with “J” and “B” initials next to it.