Ben Affleck and Violet Avert Disaster…Almost!

Revolutionpix/Fame

During a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Ben Affleck revealed that his 3-year-old daughter Violet Anne hasn’t skipped a beat since he and wife Jennifer Garner welcomed Seraphina Rose Elizabeth, 3-months. “Violet is handling it fine,” the 36-year-old actor said. “She’s pretty good.” A big perk for the new big sister, of course, is lots of one-on-one time with dad…even if mom sometimes needs convincing! “I’m always trying to tell my wife, ‘Look, it’s under control. I don’t know what gives you the impression that I’m not up to this task,’” Ben joked.

On one recent outing, Ben and Violet enjoyed lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Noting that “Three-years-old is kind of the age where you knock things over just for the fun of it,” Ben recalled that — much to his chagrin — Violet did just that with their tray of food, including two burritos, a water and a Diet Coke. “It’s spilling down towards me, and I go ‘Oh shhhhhhh; In the middle of the curse word, I take the car and I’m turning, and then I veered around,” he said with a laugh. “And then I went ‘Sheisse.’” Unfortunately, Ben’s choice of a German curse word sounded so odd that it piqued Violet’s interest anyway!

“I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve averted disaster here. Except for the fact that the table’s destroyed. I kind of looked over at her and she goes, ‘What’s sheisse?’ ‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing.’ ‘Why did you say sheisse?’ She gets real serious with me.”

As the other patrons looked on, the situation rapidly deteriorated when Ben made his biggest mistake of all!

“I was like, ‘It’s nothing. It’s a bad word and we don’t say that.’ As soon as I said it was a bad word, I was just like…’No, you idiot!’ And so she just goes, ‘Sheisse! Sheisse! [Jumping up and down on chair] Sheissssse!’ It turned into a total nightmare for me. My daughter is swearing in German.”

Ben’s new movie State of Play is in theaters April 17th.

Source: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

– Missy

Watch the video below!

more about “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno – Ben …“, posted with vodpod

Comments

lol sweet little violet

- aubrey madeline on April 7th, 2009

LOL…Now that’s a cute story. I can just imagine the horror on his face when she started jumping up and down swearing in German. Hilarious! Cute family.

- RibbonInTheSky on April 7th, 2009

Aww.How adorable. I remember watching this on Leno.

- susan on April 7th, 2009

I love violet! That is to cute

- ava on April 7th, 2009

lol, hard to think on your toes in front of a restaurant full of people with a 3 year old who has gone destructive. I never would have had the chance to ask a question if I had purposely knocked over a glass of water.

- Harley on April 7th, 2009

Just curious (I have a two-year-old) — is 3 really an age where kids spill things just to spill thing?! Don’t think I’ll be looking forward to that!!

- mmh on April 7th, 2009

I miss seeing pictures of Jen and Voilet Hopefully we’ll see some pics of baby Seraphina soon too, I do miss this family!

- Chloe on April 7th, 2009

Oh, Violet! Poor Ben lol. I was cracking up when he was imitating Violet saying the word!

- Nanny-Emma on April 7th, 2009

I saw that clip. Funniest 3.5 minutes of television I have seen in a long while.

- Susan on April 7th, 2009

Anybody know what the word sheisse means?

- Amlys on April 7th, 2009

Aww, what an adorable family. Ben and Jen both seam like very attentive parents.

Chloe, CBB doesn’t post pics of the Afflecks anymore for some reason, but many other sites such as justjared.com and x17online often have pics of Violet.

- mimi on April 7th, 2009

As a German I find it incredibly funny that Ben knows German swear words and let one slip. I remember my parents wanting to say Scheisse (actually written with a c), but they always changed it to Scheibenkleister (a translation would be pane glue)- I learned it anyway.
I hope there will be family pictures soon, I’d love to see Violet with her lil sister.

- Cathrin on April 7th, 2009

@Amlys: it means sh*t.
Sry for the double comment!

- Cathrin on April 7th, 2009

Amlys: It means sh*t.

- Marit on April 7th, 2009

That sounds sooooo much like my almost three year old! I can totally relate. My Dad used to say scheisse in front of me when I was little; I figured it out anyway. I say “Shoot!” Then my little one goes on and on with “What happened mommy? Why did you say shoot? What happened mommy?”

(Amlys – it’s the word Ben was trying not to say in English – sh*t.)

- Julie on April 7th, 2009

It sounds like Jennifer doesn’t give Ben credit if he’s joking, or at least trying to joke about “I’m always trying to tell my wife, ‘Look, it’s under control. I don’t know what gives you the impression that I’m not up to this task.” I wouldn’t be surprised if Ben has been sort of butted out of the way now that Jennifer’s mother is living with them and the women don’t have confidence in his parenting abilities.

On the other hand, that video is so funny as he describes trying to change from saying shit to Sheisse. Of course once kids find out something is a bad word they will say it as often and as loudly as they can. Hehe. So cute.

- eternalcanadian on April 7th, 2009

So hilarious. Definitely watch the video if you can, its much more funny with his voices and facial expressions.

- Brandi on April 7th, 2009

I laughed SO HARD when I saw this clip a few days ago on People. And then I was really, really glad my son is still not old enough to talk yet :-p

- MZ on April 7th, 2009

I’ve heard that before. I was at friend’s party for her daughter’s first and another friend, who I haven’t seen in years, freaked when she saw me and went to say almost the same thing as Ben. But because there were older kids there, she turned it into “Holy shish kabob”, hehehe!

- robinepowell on April 7th, 2009

I think it’s so weird, or hypocritical, for Jen and Ben to play so secretive (like with their baby’s name) yet pimp out the kid stories every time they need to sell a movie. Some celebrities just refuse to play along and we rarely see pics of their kids and they don’t use their children as props for cute stories. I thought Jen and Ben were very private because they took so long to release the baby’s name but here he is selling a movie and telling us the intimate moments within his family. I mean don’t Jen and Ben refuse to go to premiers and red carpet events together to reduce the attention? Can’t have it both ways.

- Gigi on April 7th, 2009

Oh please Gigi, get over yourself.

- Cecilia on April 7th, 2009

Agreed. And how were they secretive with her name? They released it within a few weeks! Maybe they just hadn’t made a final decision. If you want to talk about being secretive with a name Holly Hunter, Carrie Anne Moss, and Helena Bonham Carter are better examples.

- Brandi on April 7th, 2009

This was hilarious to watch. I saw the clip last week.
It’s wonderful that Ben is trying so hard with his daughter – but I can only IMAGINE what his wife had to say about the whole thing when he got home and told her. He always seems to defer to his wife when it comes to being the ‘parent in charge’… has anyone else noticed that? He always says something in interviews that makes him sound a bit hapless, and that Jennifer really runs things in the house. It’s really sweet actually, although I’d bet they are equal parents in reality.

- Mrs. R. on April 7th, 2009

CBB seriously doesn’t show pics of the Afflecks anymore??? Why???

—–

PEOPLE was asked by Ben and Jen’s reps to take a break from posting photos of her and we’ve tried to respect that.

- CBB Staff

- Fifi on April 7th, 2009

Very cute story! Poor Ben. lol.

- Erica on April 7th, 2009

For a bystander it must have been hilarious, I’m still grinning just because I watched the vid … twice *lol*. I guess most parents have experienced situations like that. I remember more than one where I would have wished the ground had swallowed me up …

If Ben and family want to visit our little country, they are very welcome to do so. Maybe he even learns more German words. I read somewhere the German language contains about 3 million words, so there should be enough non-swear words left for him to teach sweet little Violet *g*.

- Chris on April 7th, 2009

Thank you CBB for respecting Ben & Jen’s wishes.

That story was funny. Violet’s a little character.

- Lilly on April 7th, 2009

I think its really cool that you guys respect the wishes of celebrity parents in terms of posting pictures of their kids. Way to go!

- Kat on April 7th, 2009

HAHAHAHA,i can only imagine

We are a german/american family and instead of shit or scheisse i taught myself to just say ISH

- Simone on April 7th, 2009

This is too funny! Embarrassing for Ben, but then, not everyone knows what “sheisse” means. I remember one friend telling me about how her son invented the “F-word” song — she was driving him and a friend to preschool, and they were both singing a song consisting entirely of the F-word. Very loudly. She had the darndest time keeping a neutral face, because she knew if she laughed, it would just encourage them, and if she got angry, it would encourage them even more.

- SAR on April 7th, 2009

While I like seeing the celebrity baby pictures if a family comes out and asks for a magazine or website not to publish them I think it should be respected. So, good job CBB. I do think it made these parents a bit nervous the amount of attention their daughter was getting. The amount of paps camped out at her preschool morning, noon and night so to speak was a tad unnerving I would think.

- kris on April 7th, 2009

I respect CBB/People for honoring the Affleck’s wishes. However, with the many thousands of celebrity sites and magazines out there, it probably wont make much difference in these photos circulating, or the demand for them.

Of all the sites/magazines, I would feel the most comfortable with these pics being here. CBB/People is just about the only celeb site/magazine with any taste or respect. Still, I do understand where they are coming from.

- gargoylegurl on April 7th, 2009

Yep, Kids are like parrots

- lee on April 7th, 2009

Oh if other celebs find out they will request the same of CBB and it will be the end of the website.

What I don’t understand is, that if you have the time to think of another word you can also just not say the first word. Isn’t a swear sometimes that happens in the moment?

- Anna on April 7th, 2009

I’m really kind of over hearing about this family! Violet is pictured everywhere and seems to be more of a celebrity than Jennifer! Than Ben can’t help telling stories of her! Great, evertime they go out Violet’s going to throw the food & drink everywhere! Teach your child manners, she’s a very intelligent child and knows what she did was wrong! Stop encouraging negative behavior! Childcare Teacher for 15 yrs. Just my opinion.

- g!na on April 7th, 2009

LOL! That is so funny! What a cute story!

- Jane on April 7th, 2009

Uhh G!na, I seriously doubt that Violet is up at 1200 watching Leno, so I think it is okay.
My goodness…did you NEVER tell those types of stories about your kids? Lighten up.

- Kelli on April 7th, 2009

I guess my original comment got lost in cyberspace. Well, I will try again. I wish to thank CBB for explaining why they no longer post pics and stories about the Garner/Afflecks forcing me to go elsewhere to see articles on them. They are my favorite celebrity family. CBB is head and shoulders above the other celebrity babies sites in that the commenters are so respectable and intelligent. Not at all like the ones that post hateful comments and rude and/or vulgar things about the parents and children. Thanks for the explanation CBB as to why we no longer saw pics of the Afflecks here and look forward to coming here often. Keep up the good work.

- Rosy J on April 7th, 2009

Wait did i miss something? Its being explained above as Violet knocked over a glass of water. I watched this on Leno and Ben told how she knocked over an entire tray of their food, ie. burritos and soda and water etc. Love the family, but that is not exactly what I would call “lol….funny Violet!!!” He is cute in the way he told the story with love and addoration, but a 3 year old knocking food over in a restaurant is not so cute!

- Nan on April 8th, 2009

So Gina, every child that spills a glass of water has bad manners? Come on, every parent has been through that and there’s nothing wrong with retelling a story. Sheesh. This site is almost not enjoyable anymore with all these nitpickers. People will find anything to bash, even a cute story about a toddler spilling some water.

- shalay on April 8th, 2009

Such a cute story, and ben seems like a good dad. He is so handsome to me too.

- gianna on April 8th, 2009

As a mom of a child who goes to Violet’s preschool I say thank you for not posting anymore on them! It is a complete circus for us everyday and I think it’s wonderful you listen to their wishes.
You guys rock!

- Jmama on April 8th, 2009

Oh, I wondered why I hadn’t seen photos of them for a long time. I am amazed yet pleased that People has said they will respect their privacy, but at the same time I like others feel that this site uses more respectful photos and seeks to share lovely family pictures with its interested readers, rather than ‘oops looks at that sweat stain on Jen’s top’ like some of the magazines/sites. Perhaps, like some other celebs have done, the Garner-Afflecks could do an interview specifically for CBB readers, coupled with selected approved shots of their family. I have two daughters aged 3 and 4 and it can provide a boost to my day to see Spy Mommy and her family doing similar things to us, far removed from celeb-land, over in CA.

- Natasha on April 8th, 2009

I don’t think Gina was trying to say kids who accidentally spill water have bad manners. As parents, do honestly think you would laugh and say “how cute”? if you were at a restaurant and your 3 year old purposely knocked over all your food and drinks??!! Again, it was not a glass of water but a whole tray of Mexican food. Yes, Ben’s reaction is cute and his story was funny, but as a teacher and parent I can’t say I would encourage that with a “oh that’s so cute”!!

- Nan on April 8th, 2009

Well everytime the pick up and drop off of Violet is Jen.. Not Ben
he is in Boston filming a movie with Kevin Costner..So it is Jen
and Vi that we see on the website pages..

Thanks a lot CBB for the father daughter photo which we don’t see
that often anymore..

- Marie Snyard on April 8th, 2009

I agree that I don’t find it too funny that a child knocked over a whole table of food. I’m glad to hear this is not “normal” 3-year-old behavior. As I said earlier in the comments, my son is 2 and I don’t see him doing this in a year!!!

But in some ways it is funny to think of sweet, dimpled Miss V doing this!!! =)

- mmh on April 8th, 2009

Wow – I am surprised about all of the harsh comments about a three year old spilling things! For one thing, Violet just became a big sister – a huge adjustment for someone that age and she is probably trying to get a little extra attention. Is spilling everything on the floor acceptable? No, but Ben also didn’t say he didn’t correct her afterwards either. I am sure at one point he had a very serious discussion about why that was not acceptable but really does the general public want to hear that part of the story? Most likely not. I can’t believe some of you have never told a story about some horrible behaviour your children have exhibited at some time or another! My friends, co-workers and I ALWAYS have some sort of “wonderful” stories from the trenches. And my children are 12yo and 6yo! I for one like the fact that celebrities have the some of the same difficulties as the rest of us!

- Jacquie on April 8th, 2009

Jacquie – as the mother of two boys I have plenty of “I can’t believe they did that stories”….all the time! The difference is when I tell them, it’s not met with “oh , how cute….”. More like “oh you must have wanted to kill them!” LOL I completely agree – Ben’s story is sweet. But, why is it that when people want to express an opinion that may differ with the majority they are viewed as “harsh” or “need to lighten up”? Nobody is suggesting they lock Violet up and never let her out again!

- Nan on April 8th, 2009

Wow !!! What a GREAT Blog you have and what a cute video….awe

- claudina101 on April 8th, 2009

Lighten up folks! I have a lot of stories like that (not to mention the stories MY parents have!) and it is all a matter of perspective. Just because he chooses to see the funny side of it afterwards doesn’t mean he didn’t Violet off if she did it on purpose (unless she is one of those kids who respond better if you ignore bad behaviour) or that he enourages bad behaviour. Besides, I doubt she is up at midnight watching Jay Leno even if her dad is on!

- MiB on April 9th, 2009

No doubt, though, that if the child purposefully knocked over the stuff just because she thought it was cute or funny, she needs some serious discipline, and I suspect that she is severely lacking that. She often appears over-indulged, albeit cute and all that, but VERY SPOILED! She sometimes sticks her tongue out at people, etc. – she shouldn’t be permitted to do that.

- Janice on April 10th, 2009

Janice- If I were a celeb, I’d let my kid stick their tongue out at the paps, too! Those guys deserve it!

- CelebBabyLover on April 11th, 2009

This is why I barely even read comments on this site anymore! Why does someone ALWAYS have to find something to be negative about? All of the posters commenting that a child knocking over a tray of food isn’t funny, Violet must be spoiled, she needs discipline, etc…relax! Did Ben ever say “I laughed and told Violet how cute what she did was.”? No. I have a 3 year old daughter, and when she engages in normal toddler misbehavior, of course I discipline her. Do I sometimes then later, after she is out of earshot or in bed relay the story to my fiancee or mother or someone, and laugh about it? Of course. You can discipline a child and teach them correct behavior, and still later on look back and be amused by what they did.

- Anne on April 11th, 2009

Anne- ITA! Also, come on, people, how many celebs who go on The Tonight Show DON’T tell funny stories? I mean, this is night time T.V. we’re talking about! Generally, Night Time T.V. is raunchier and more humerous than daytime T.V. (not that Daytime T.V. can’t be humerous. All I mean is that, when celebs tell stories like the one Ben told, or funny potty-training stories or something, it’s usually on night time T.V. rather than daytime T.V.!)!

Also, do you think the people watching “The Tonight Show” really wanted to hear about how Ben discplined Violet afterward? Probably not!

Like other posters said, it’s a pretty safe bet that Violet probably isn’t up at Midnight watching Jay Leno, and likely won’t see that particular show until she’s much older, if at all.

As for sticking her tongue out…Like I said last night, the paps deserve it! Also, she’s only three years old, for goodness sake! If she were 6 and doing it, THEN I might be a little concerned!

- CelebBabyLover on April 11th, 2009

My son is 3, he has his moments LOL!!! Only I wish he swore in french instead of english. My son runs around yelling “WHAT THE HELL!” when something is going on he doesn’t get, or if he drops or breaks something all I hear is “Oh shit” or “Oh F**k!”. Don’t ask where he got them from, it was the DMV for the F word, he heard me say oh shit once when I stubbed my toe and I say what the hell whenever my husband doesn’t something stupid. We try to curb our language a little better now.

As for the dumping of foods. Kids can be little terrors, and this is just an example. They are learning consequences, and that would’ve been his moment to set some, especially with making her help clean it up and apologizing to the employee who probably helped clean it, and then leaving.

- LizC on April 13th, 2009