The 'Justice League' star was spotted shirtless on the beach with his epic and much debated phoenix tattoo on full display.
Like a phoenix from the ashes, new curiosities about Ben Affleck's giant back tattoo have arisen.
The Justice League star was photographed on the beach in Hawaii Thursday while filming his newest movie, Triple Frontier, with his tattoo on full display.
Affleck is seen only from the back in the photo, wearing blue swim trunks and drying his face with a towel, but it's the back-covering phoenix tattoo that is the real attention grabber here.
The mythic tale of this unexpected tattoo dates all the way back to July of 2015, when photogs caught their first glimpse of the bottom portion on Affleck's tattoo on his lower back amidst his just announced divorce from ex-wife, Jennifer Garner.
The legend grew in December, when a better look at the tattoo was caught on the set of his self directed and starring drama Live By Night. A source told ET that the actor got a tattoo inside his wing of Garner's home in Los Angeles, while staying there during their split (the home had been separated into separate areas at the time). The tattoo appeared to be a very large phoenix, a folkloric creature associated with rebirth, and it was speculated at the time to be for his role in the movie.
Things got shady the following year in February, when Garner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair and responded to the tattoo with a classy retort about the humongous phoenix on her ex-husband's back.
"You know what we would say in my hometown about that? 'Bless his heart," Garner said. "A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario?"
"I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes," the Miracles From Heaven actress playfully added.
A month later, while promoting Batman Vs Superman, Affleck tried to explain the tattoo without fully acknowledging its existence.
"I have a lot of tattoos. It's true, I do," he told ET at the time. He also claimed that there hadn't been "a good representation of it in the media" and that there was a reason he hadn't shown the ink off himself.
"I don't have them places where you can see them, because that's private," he said.
And with that, the mystery of the tattoo was somewhat settled, and hidden away until now.
But there's no avoiding showing off that ink, as well as other tattoos, as Affleck films shirtless scenes on the beach alongside co-stars Charlie Hunam, Garrett Hedlund and Oscar Isaac.
For more on Affleck and his non-tattoo related activities, watch the video below!
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