Teen who robbed Ben Affleck at knifepoint later went to prison, he recalls
Ben Affleck opened up about a terrifying episode from his teen years — and the way it unfolded will stop you cold.
On Kerry Washington’s podcast Street You Grew Up On, Ben Affleck walked listeners through a moment from his teens when a routine walk home from school suddenly turned into a knife-point shakedown. Two older boys crossed the street, grabbed him and demanded money—until he realized he knew them from the baseball field.
“I was scared,” Affleck said. “But then out of the corner of my eye, I realized who they were. I recognized them from playing baseball and they were like older boys that I knew and they were like, ‘Oh yeah, what’s up?’ And so I guess I was like, I guess I’m off the hook.”
Affleck estimated he was about 15 at the time, already starting to dip a toe into acting. The memory stuck with him for another reason: he said one of those boys later committed a deadly crime and went away for a long stretch.
“That kid who robbed me ended up three or four years later k****** somebody with a knife and going to prison for 20 years,” he said.
From close call to parenting rule
He admitted he didn’t tell his mother about the encounter until much later; when he finally did, she was upset he’d kept it to himself. That teenage instinct to downplay the bad stuff, he said, looms large for him now that he’s a parent.
“I’m always like, ‘You guys know you can tell me anything. Anything! I’m so cool with anything you have to say,’” he said. “And they’re kind of like, ‘Oh my God, will this stop?’”
Affleck, a father of three, shares kids Violet, Fin and Samuel with ex-wife Jennifer Garner, and he’s joked elsewhere about not being a “cool dad” even as he gushes about their talents. The story came up when Washington asked if he’d ever been robbed, leading to a memory that still shapes how he talks to his own kids today.