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Jennifer Garner has revealed she 'panicked' about her financial future after the breakdown of her marriage to Ben Affleck and realised she needed to become 'an earner' after years spent putting motherhood ahead of Hollywood.
The Alias star, 54, who split from fellow actor Ben, also 54, in 2015 after a decade of marriage, said she suddenly became aware that she had stepped back from her career while raising their three children - and feared there was no guarantee the work would keep coming.
'I panicked when I was first out of my marriage and realised I had taken such a step back in my work,' Jennifer said on Emma Grede's Aspire podcast on Tuesday.
'Suddenly I realised, like, I don't know how long I'll be able to work. This isn't a career that's like, hey, you're 60, you're 55, you're 43 - come on, let's pay you more than you've ever made. That's not been traditionally the role.'
Jennifer and Ben married in June 2005 and share three children, Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14.
Jennifer Garner has revealed she 'panicked' about her financial future after the breakdown of her marriage to Ben Affleck and realised she needed to become 'an earner'
The Alias star, 54, who split from fellow actor Ben, also 54, in 2015 after a decade of marriage, said she suddenly became aware that she had stepped back from her career
They announced their separation in June 2015, shortly after their tenth wedding anniversary, and finally completed their divorce in 2018.
Jennifer said the end of the marriage forced her to think differently about her own financial security and how she could continue earning while still being present for the children.
She added: 'I was suddenly like, wait a minute, I have to take care of myself. I have to take care of these kids. So what is it going to be?'
The actress said she and her long-time manager then became 'very calculated' about what her next chapter should look like, with a non-negotiable being that she needed to remain close to home.
Jennifer continued: 'She was like, how can you work? And I said, I can work in Los Angeles. I can't leave these kids for six months at a time. I would love to - I love going on location - but that is not this time in my career.
'And so it's like, okay, what can we make happen? How can we do it? And we just got really targeted and still about it.'
One of the answers was Once Upon a Farm, the organic children's food business Jennifer joined as a co-founder in 2017.
Jennifer recalled: 'Once Upon a Farm was very much a part of that play. It's just the crazy thing is it's working.'
The company made its New York Stock Exchange debut in February at $18 a share, giving it a value of around $724million.
Jennifer and Ben married in June 2005 and share three children, Violet, 20, Fin, 17, and Samuel, 14 (pictured with her brood in April 2020)
Jennifer is the company's biggest individual shareholder, owning around seven per cent of the business.
Forbes estimated this month that her stake was worth around $50million.
Reflecting on her financially uncertain period before the business took off, Jennifer said her fame offered little reassurance that she would continue to have money coming in.
She explained: 'It's not like you can just unfamous yourself. Life is expensive and you still have to kind of figure out how you're going to live.
'And just because you're well known by people does not mean that there is some great living being provided for you.
'And it became very serious to me really quickly as someone who had never given a lot of thought to money. Like, oh, I need to be an earner here.'
The star also joked that even now her long-time business manager can make her fear she is broke simply by giving her a look.
She added: 'All he has to do is look at me funny and I convince myself that I am broke. My problem is... I give a lot of money away.
'So every now and then he's like, can you pump the brakes? So that is something that I had to cool my jets on.'
Jennifer's admission comes after she revealed earlier this summer that she had 'hardly worked for a long time' while her children were young and amid the 'upheaval' in her family surrounding the end of her marriage.
Her acting career has since gathered pace again, with Jennifer recently starring in Peacock drama The Five-Star Weekend while continuing her role at Once Upon a Farm.
Yet she said she has no regrets about spending those years closer to home.
She said: 'I was so lucky to be able to luxuriate in working some and being home and being a mom a lot of the time. I was really grateful for that opportunity. I got to kind of have the best of both worlds.
'So I can't really look back and complain about any of it. It just is what it is.'
English (US) ·