We don’t get even a glimpse of Ben Affleck’s giant, majestic back tattoo in his new Netflix movie Triple Frontier, and truly the movie is all the worse for it. It’s big and bold: an august phoenix rising from the ashes of its past mistakes! It was long rumored, occasionally papped, but finally fully spotted when Affleck (along with co-stars Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Oscar Isaac) trained for the movie on a beach in Hawaii last year. On Ellen Thursday afternoon, Affleck addressed the tat: “It’s a phoenix rising from my ass,†he joked. “I was about to say that it represents something really important to me, but we’ll skip that. It’s meaningful to me. I like it. It’s not something that I kept private — I wasn’t doing photo shoots or whatever.â€
Affleck’s exes, Jennifers Garner and Lopez (and, of course, Matt Damon), have publicly expressed their distaste for the tattoo, which he got in 2015. “The sentiment ran against [it],†Affleck said, about the collective groan the tattoo inspired everywhere around the world except in Boston, probably. “But I love my tattoo, I’m super happy with it.†Ben Affleck and Ben Affleck’s back tattoo: They’re for keeps!