Following shocking revelations he tried to conceal his ancestor’s ties to the slave trade, actor Ben Affleck has admitted he’s actually very much in favor of a social and legal system of forced servitude.
“How else can I put it?” Affleck said in an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. “I love slavery.”
The 42-year-old star of such hits as “Gone Girl” and “Pearl Harbor” describes hiding his enthusiasm for slavery as “an epic struggle,” particularly in Hollywood where the practice is roundly condemned.
“On numerous occasions, when conversation turns political, I’ve almost slipped and explained how I believe that society functions best with two distinct castes, one with the arduous task of ownership and supervision, the other with the facile job of living in shacks and doing exactly what they’re told,” Affleck said.
“Once, at an Oscars party, I referred to ‘12 Years a Slave’ as a slapstick comedy,” he said. “Everyone thought I was joking.”
Affleck also concedes that he’s a huge fan of antebellum men’s fashion, and that when he’s at home with nothing else to do, he dons a nineteenth-century wool frock and a silk hat, and in a Southern accent he barks orders at his personal assistants, often demanding they fetch him items such as the spittoon and his dueling pistols.
“My publicist says I sound like Foghorn Leghorn when I do that, but that doesn’t bother me in the least,” he said. “A gentleman never lets his slaves’ quips get under his skin.”