- Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.com
Ben Affleck pulled off an unusual move while driving his car on Thursday.
The 53-year-old actor pulled a cigarette out of its box with his mouth while driving his black sedan in Los Angeles.
Later he was seen puffing on the Marlboro Menthol cigarette with the window down as he wore a dark blue suit.
Affleck successfully quit his smoking habit in 2005 with the help of hypnotherapy, which his good friend and producing partner Matt Damon suggested he try.
He was driven to be healthier for his children with then-wife Jennifer Garner.
In 2008, during a visit on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Affleck admitted smoking a pack a day was ‘part of who I was.
‘I finally decided to quit smoking when I was gonna have a child.
‘That was the thing that sort of put it over the top for me.’
Describing the process of hypnosis, he said, ‘You sit in, like, a Barcalounger and he (hypnotist) sips water and just talks to you for an hour, and explains how nicotine is poison.
‘All of a sudden, you thought, “This is asinine that I’ve been doing this to myself for all these years.”‘
He added, ‘My last cigarette was on November 10, 2005… I feel a huge difference in my health now that I don’t smoke.
‘I feel like I’m in better shape than I was five years ago.’
But The Accountant star picked up the habit again in 2016.
Since his divorce from second wife Jennifer Lopez in 2025, a stressful time for him no doubt, Affleck has been spotted lighting up on multiple occasions.
Meanwhile, Garner has opened up about the challenges she’s faced while co-parenting her children with Affleck.
They split after a decade of marriage in 2015.
The former couple have been focusing on raising their family together despite the divorce.
Garner, 53, has revealed they have both learned how to be ‘both parents’ for the children.
During an appearance on Bustle’s One Nightstand podcast, Jennifer explained: ‘When your kids grow up in two separate households, I become mom and dad, and he becomes dad and mom.
‘You kind of can’t help it, right? Because you don’t have the benefit of both sides, the yin and yang being in the same house, so you have to have a bit of both in the way you parent.
‘There’s a little bit of loss in that, but there’s also something gained in that … You also just learn, it’s made me let go and not focus so much on the bringing up.’