"It's meaningful to me."
Ben Affleck is defending his much-discussed back tattoo.
The 46-year-old actor stops by The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday and dishes on his giant, rainbow-colored tattoo of a phoenix, which spans his entire back. The rumor of Affleck's huge ink first started in 2015, but the full scale of the intricate marking was unveiled last March when Affleck was hanging on a Hawaiian beach with his Triple Frontier co-stars, Charlie Hunam, Garrett Hedlund and Oscar Isaac.
Affleck doesn't seem bothered at all by the somewhat harsh criticism to his permanent marking, classifying the attention as, "not so much positive."
"It's a commitment," DeGeneres acknowledges, before Affleck confirms that the ink is a phoenix.
"Rising from your a**," DeGeneres quips.
"We didn't even plan that bit," Affleck jokes good naturedly. "That's what you get when you're a comedian. You can do that kind of thing. Very quick."
Affleck goes on to reveal that the "meaningful" tattoo "represents something really important to me."
"I like it," he says. "It's something I sort of kept private. It wasn't like I was sort of doing photo shoots or whatever. We were two hours north of the city on some island in Hawaii and we didn't know paparazzi was there. So they got a picture of my tattoo and yeah the sentiment ran, you know, against."
"I was like, I love my tattoo. I'm very happy with it," he adds of his response to the criticism. "Luckily I'm the one who has it."
ET's Nischelle Turner recently caught up with Affleck and the rest of the Triple Frontier cast, who discussed their now-infamous day on the beach.
“You’re welcome. No-one was happier than us,” Affleck jokingly said of the beach pictures.
“They told us that was a private beach!” Hedlund lamented of the snaps.
While on Ellen, Affleck also discusses his current state of mind following his 40-day stint in rehab late last year, revealing that he's "in such a great place."
"You know, it's interesting. It's like there's temptation to get... depressed. I could feel like, oh I've been through a lot and this was hard and that was hard or I could be kind of embarrassed. But, I have to say, I feel so good now," he says. "I'm in such a great place. Kids are healthy. You know, life is good. And so it's like whatever it took for me to get to this place, you know, I'm grateful for it."
One of the things making life great for the actor is serving as one of the coaches for his son's little league team. Affleck shares three kids -- Violet, 13, Seraphina, 10, and Samuel, 7 -- with his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner.
"Yeah I'm a coach on the little league team. It's going great. He's awesome. It's a lot of fun. The kids are great kids," he says. "It's like one of those things, you love it so much. It's like the dad dream... to be the coach, to coach your son or your daughter on their little league team. It's very exciting. People have been very cool."
Watch the video below for more on Affleck's family:
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