Jennifer Garner says paparazzi blocked doors and knocked over kids

Jennifer Garner says the paparazzi scrum around her family once became so intense that children were knocked down outside preschool as photographers tried to shoot her or Ben Affleck.

The actor described the encounters on the “Shut Up Evan” podcast, telling host Evan Katz that photographers pursued her and her children in ways she considered dangerous. Garner said the problem went beyond irritation or loss of privacy, because other families and children were getting caught in the crush.

Garner said that if she drove through a yellow traffic light, “15 cars” would run the red light behind her. She also said photographers drove onto lawns, including on a hillside, while trying to follow her.

One childhood activity, she said, was interrupted because the attention around her family had become unworkable. Garner told the podcast that while the family was trying to let one of her children play soccer, the association asked them to stop because “20 cars” were arriving.

“So it wasn’t just about us,” Garner said, describing the paparazzi business around celebrity families as “an industry that had gotten out of control.”

Garner also described trying to get medical care for a child while photographers crowded the entrance. She said a parent carrying a sick child and trying to get into a pediatrician’s office should not be blocked at the door by cameras.

“There’s something wrong with that,” she said, adding that “the kids are paying the price.”

The actor’s sharpest memory, as she told Katz, involved preschool pickup. Garner said she saw children “getting knocked over” by photographers who were trying to reach her or Affleck.

Garner said the attention followed her even though she lived in an area with other famous people. Her explanation on the podcast was blunt: photographers targeted her because she “had the kids.”

Katz asked whether the situation had improved over time. Garner said she still has two photographers who have been assigned to follow her for more than 20 years, and that their long-running, unwanted proximity has produced what she called an “odd respect for each other.”

She described the dynamic as “kind of a Stockholm syndrome thing,” while making clear that she has also repeatedly sought help from authorities. Garner said she has called police on one of the photographers “a million times” and asked for enough space to take a walk around the block with her children and dog.

The comments were about paparazzi behavior around Garner’s family and did not identify individual photographers by name in the reported remarks.

This story draws on original reporting from Variety.