EXCLUSIVE: Ben Affleck 'Gripped With Fear' His Fiery Daughter Will Tell All About His Failed Marriages After She Becomes United Nations Firebrand
Ben Affleck has been worried about his outspoken daughter possibly revealing family secrets about his failed marriages.
Nov. 13 2025, Published 7:29 p.m. ET
Ben Affleck is growing increasingly fearful his daughter Violet – newly thrust into the global spotlight after a blistering speech at the United Nations – may soon also speak publicly about the turmoil surrounding his failed marriages.
RadarOnline.com can reveal his concern follows 19-year-old Violet Affleck's impassioned address at the UN in New York, at which the Yale University student – the eldest child of Affleck and Jennifer Garner, both 53 – delivered a fierce, mask-covered plea for world leaders to confront the realities of long COVID and airborne disease.
Daughter's Public Platform Triggers Father's Anxiety
Violet Affleck delivered a fiery speech at the United Nations.
Sources tell us her surprising rising public profile, combined with the teen's willingness to call out adults for "concealing" danger, has left Affleck anxious about what she may reveal about her own family history.
In her speech, delivered while wearing a K95 mask, Violet told delegates: "We are told by leaders across the board that we are the future. But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes."
She added adults had engaged in "ignoring downplaying, and concealing both the prevalence of airborne transmission and the threat of long COVID," a remark advisers say has triggered fresh unease within her father's camp.
A source close to the actor said: "Ben admires Violet's strength, but he is gripped with fear about what she might choose to say next.
"She's always been direct, and now she has a global platform.
"He's worried she could turn that honesty toward her own experiences, including things he's desperate to keep private."
Fear of Revealing Family Secrets
An insider said Ben feared she might speak about his failed marriages.
The source added: "Her speech showed she isn't afraid to challenge authority. Ben knows that includes him, and it's one of his biggest fears she will pop up on podcasts and panels talking about her family secrets and how they have impacted her."
Violet continued her UN tirade by warning of the toll COVID-19 continues to take on young people, saying: "One infection can result in disabling damage to almost every cell in the body from the brain and heart to the nerves and blood vessels."
She cited scientist Akiko Iwasaki and said long COVID had already surpassed asthma as the most common chronic illness in children under five.
Another insider said: "Her passion is admirable, but Ben can sense that she's emboldened.
"He's terrified she'll start linking the idea of adults failing children to her own family."
According to the source, Affleck remains "deeply sensitive" about the end of his marriages to Garner and, more recently, Jennifer Lopez.
"He knows Violet lived through it all – the arguments, the tension, the relapses. If she ever chose to speak about it, it would hit him hard," a source said.
Speaking Like Someone Who Has Seen Failure
Violet compared clean air measures to past indoor smoking bans.
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During her speech, Violet added she was "furious" for children affected by long-term illness, adding: "It is a neglect of the highest order to look children in the eyes and say, 'We knew how to protect you and we didn't do it.'"
One political attendee who witnessed the address said: "You could feel the emotion in the room. She spoke like someone who has spent years watching adults fail to act – and that's exactly what has Ben rattled."
Violet also connected the fight for clean indoor air to historic bans on indoor smoking, noting her childhood confusion over "no smoking" signs.
She urged delegates to treat filtered air as a human right, saying: "We can create clean air infrastructure that is so ubiquitous and so obviously necessary, so that tomorrow's children don't even know why we need it."
She previously spoke about post-viral illness at a Los Angeles meeting.
This was not Violet's first public health intervention.
At a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting in July 2024, she said: "I contracted a post-viral condition in 2019. I'm OK now, but I saw first-hand that medicine does not always have answers to the consequences of even minor viruses.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown that into sharper relief."
