Did Zac Affleck LIE about being related to Ben Affleck?!
Ever since The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives came out, star Jennifer Affleck has been hyping up her hubby’s relation to the Good Will Hunting star! It was talked about onscreen, her last name was often mentioned, and she even used the connection to promote the series. But once the Hulu show premiered, people have grown skeptical about the connection, including pro genealogist Dr. Adina Newman who claimed Zac and Ben aren’t related AT ALL!! So, what the heck is going on?
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Co-star Jessi Ngatikaura floated to Scheana Shay on Friday’s episode of the Scheananigans podcast that it’s quite possible Zac completely lied about his family ties! He supposedly claimed his father is second cousins with the A-lister, which has apparently not been verified. And yes, Jessi thinks it’s possible he lied to his future wife about it before she took his famous last name! While discussing speculation, Jessi noted:
“I don’t know if this is true.”
Even she’s confused? LOLz! But just like viewers at home, Jessi did think it was “funny” how much the show highlighted the Affleck of it all so much, recalling:
“On the show they were like, Jen Affleck, every scene. Everyone else was just like, ‘Jessi, 31.’ I’m like, ‘You could have left my age out, but cool.’ It’s just funny because like, I think they made the last name such a thing.”
They did really lean into it — and now that’s coming back to bite ’em in the ass! Sharing her two cents on the drama, she speculated:
“But I will say that I could see a world where Zac told her that, and she believed it because why wouldn’t you? I don’t think Jen would lie about that. I really don’t, but maybe he could. I mean, we’ve seen a little bit of how he can be.”
Honestly, we could see this being the case. Maybe there was some family lore about the connection to Ben and he used it to woo his now-wife. But then she became TikTok and TV famous and the lie suddenly spun out of control? Awk!
However, if we were him, we’d try to stop all the excessive references to Ben once the show got greenlit — especially knowing the internet is full of sleuths eager to get to the bottom of an easily fact-checked claim like this!
That said, Jessi also thinks it’s possible Ben’s camp could be the ones lying! She wondered:
“But also maybe Ben Affleck’s team’s like, ‘We want nothing to do with you guys.’ So let’s dig and, like, plant this story because Zac is looking a little bad.”
Hmm. We know Zac didn’t treat Jen great during the season — especially when threatening to divorce her after she went to a Chippendales show with her friends in Las Vegas (while he was off gambling her money away). But Ben’s team has been navigating his rocky split from Jennifer Lopez all summer. Would they really put time and energy into planting a story about Zac?? We guess, maybe! If they were eager to shut down the narrative, it probably wasn’t too hard to dig up the proof that these two men aren’t related! The family tree lays it all out there. But who knows if Ben really cared that much about distancing himself from Zac!
FWIW, Jen herself has acknowledged she and her husband have “never met” the Air director, though she insisted to Us Weekly, “Zac’s dad has, a long time ago.” So, despite leaning into the family bond, there’s some part of her that knew the families weren’t as close as they made it seem on the show! Maybe she was starting to get suspicious about all this, too!
Now we wanna guess we need to hear from Zac’s dad. Did he ever really meet Ben?!? There are still so many questions as to how this family tale spread so much if there’s no obvious link between the two Affleck families! Thoughts, Perezcious readers? Do you think Zac would have lied about this? Sound OFF (below)!
