Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Garner Have Some Thoughts About Ben Affleck’s Giant Back Tattoo

We generally pride ourselves on not being judgmental about other people’s aesthetic choices—to each their own, taste is subjective, and so on. But today we just have to let go of all that for one minute as we join the chorus of people everywhere re-asking what was he thinking?!, re: Ben Affleck’s tattoo. In case you’ve somehow remained blissfully unaware, it’s a huge, bright, highly detailed depiction of a phoenix rising from the ashes, and by huge, we mean shoulder blade-to-shoulder blade, neck-to-waist huge (Us Weekly has a close-up photo). The bird was first sighted by paparazzi in December but somehow escaped being the target of too much attention—until now, with both of Affleck’s famous exes commenting on it in surprisingly candid fashion.

While celebrities in general tend to do an excellent job of being diplomatic and dodging pointed questions involving their exes, both Jennifer Garner and Jennifer Lopez have just chimed in on Affleck’s body adornment. Sitting down with Andy Cohen last night on Watch What Happens Live—where all the good stuff happens—Lopez was faced with a giant photo of the giant tattoo and didn’t hold back. “It’s awful!” she said. “What are you doing? It has too many colors. His tattoos always have too many colors. They shouldn’t be so colorful. They should be, like, cooler.” We’re not sure toning down the colors would solve all the problems here, but OK. It’s a start.

Meanwhile, in her new cover interview with Vanity Fair, Garner nails exactly how we’d feel when viewing such artwork on our recently estranged husband. “You know what we would say in my hometown about that? Bless his heart.’ A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario? I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes.” One hundred times YES.

We’ll be watching to see what happens with the phoenix from here. We’d lean more toward disappearing vs. rising, but that’s a lot of ink to laser off, and he can’t exactly cover it with a big moth, a la Kaley Cuoco hiding her regrettable wedding tattoo. At least there’s always…shirts.

Watch the entire clip here: