Jennifer Lopez called herself a fool and breaks down in TEARS as she says what Ben Affleck made her go through DURING…. See More

Giving off an aura of being weighed down by life, while skulking around in checked shirts and navy jumpers and chain smoking, made him the poster boy for middle aged men everywhere experiencing a crushing sense of ennui.

Indeed ‘sad became such a cultural moment, it’s sparked countless memes and even an essay in the New Yorker dissecting the phenomenon.

However, it’s one thing to be cursed with a ‘resting hard face’ as Ben himself has put it, and quite another when rumours emerge of a matching demeanour behind it confirmation that he’s a complicated person to live with who can be ‘cold’ and ‘casts quite a shadow’, giving weight to the idea that his grumpy public persona is more than just a mask who he’s split from after two years of marriage.

The damning verdict was that Ben, 52, whose preferred activities in life away from the film studio and his family are smoking and eating Dunkin Donuts, is ‘not a lot of laughs’. Even if sniping about negative behaviour can be put down to post-divorce bitterness, there’s no denying that Affleck has put those close to him through some difficult times while battling addiction.

He’s had three stints in rehab in 2001, 2017 and 2018, with his Garner staging an intervention on the most recent occasion and driving him to treatment.

He later embarassed the Alias actress by saying that he felt trapped in the marriage while trying to stay together for the sake of their children, and would cope by drinking a bottle of Scotch and falling asleep on the couch.

After facing a backlash, he later clarified that he was in no way blaming her for his alcoholism.

However, the unflattering revelations that have emerged from two high profile divorces, coupled with the irony of someone who has money, fame and a supportive family giving off such a sense of exhausted resignation all the time, may give potential future partners pause for thought.