Life & Style is responsible for the rumor. The story starts on the magazine’s cover, which has a before photo of a noticeably larger Affleck next to a shocking after of him looking far thinner. “Sources say he’s been on an intense weight-loss regimen for his return as Batman in the Justice League sequel,” the magazine writes.
But, it says, the “shockingly thin” Affleck “might be taking his role prep a little too far,” alluding to the attached photo of Affleck, looking far different than the before photo from the cover.
“He’s 6-foot-4 and hovering around 165 pounds,” an unnamed “insider” tells the magazine, pointing to his apparent new health regimen that includes “giving up carbs and embarking on a strenuous exercise plan,” although the source didn’t identify what exactly has changed about Affleck’s exercise routine.
“He avoids sugar like the plague, but those closest to him wish he’d have a donut every once in a while. They’re starting to get worried about his health.” Wait, so in order to get back into the bulkiest shape of his life, Affleck is…cutting massive amounts of weight and removing carbs from his diet?
Look, we’re not nutritionists or powerlifters here at Gossip Cop, but we’ve got a general idea of how bodies function. And for all the tabloid’s talk about how worried his friends are after he was photographed looking thin at the end of October, he looks pretty dang good in a video from just two weeks before that.
Just because Christian Bale cut his weight down to genuinely concerning levels between Batman films doesn’t mean that Affleck is doing the same. Bale did it specifically for a role, and body transformations are pretty dang common in Hollywood. Just this year, Affleck has had to adjust from his weight gain for The Way Back.
The role saw him playing a struggling alcoholic that is certainly not in the best of health, and given that Affleck no longer drinks, pursued other methods of adding liquid calories to his diet. As he told People at the beginning of this year, he found it easier to gain weight as he got older, and in the process, learned a lot about how addiction works with food.
“I wasn’t drinking myself at the time so I couldn’t actually drink…and I’m not still,” he explained. “I’m not drinking, I’m sober, but I totally indulged in a very alcoholic way with food. …It was about just eating as much junk and food and carbs. And I am a carb guy, like pizzas, breads.”
The rest of the blurb is just as inaccurate and misleading. For one, it used a before photo from 2018, so it’s not really all that shocking that he’s changed in appearance since then. For two, Affleck is indeed set to once again become Batfleck in the DC Extended Universe, and he’s also supposed to be involved with the reshoots for the 2021 release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
And while we’d love if there was something as exciting as a Justice League sequel in this rumor, we’re going to chalk that line up as another mistake from the person who thought the beefiest version of Batman wouldn’t eat carbs. It’s presumably just a misunderstanding about the long-awaited Snyder cut. Combined with Life & Style‘s atrocious history of reporting on Ben Affleck, we’re confident in dismissing this “insider” report as nothing but incorrect speculation.