Ben Affleck refused his teenage son’s Lamborghini request on a podcast, citing hard work over handouts after a prior exotic-car mishap with the boy.
The Oscar winner shut down 14-year-old Samuel when the boy floated a Lambo, then told the story on Kerry Washington’s podcast “Street You Grew Up On.” Affleck did not soften the answer.
Fox News reported the actor’s account of the exchange, which landed years after Samuel, then 10, sat in a yellow Lamborghini at a Los Angeles-area rental lot and bumped another car.
Affleck said his older kids, Violet, 20, and Fin, 17, rarely chase flashy gifts. Samuel is a different case.
He described the moment this way:
"My son's like, ‘Dad, you should get a Lambo,’"
Affleck’s reply was immediate.
"'What? A Lambo? Are you f---ing crazy? Am I an a--hole in a yellow Lamborghini driving around like at the club?' He's like, 'Yeah.'"
Then came the verdict: “No. No!”
In June 2022, Affleck, then-fiancée Jennifer Lopez, and Samuel visited 777 Exotics, a luxury rental dealer in the Los Angeles area. Samuel got into the driver’s seat of a yellow Lamborghini SUV, put it in reverse, and backed into a white BMW.
The New York Post reported the Lamborghini Urus rented for $1,475 a day and was valued at about $250,000. Representatives for Affleck and the dealership said neither vehicle was damaged. An employee said there were no hard feelings and that Affleck loves cars.
Affleck checked the cars, then hugged his son. The clip of a star dad cleaning up a kid’s mistake traveled far. It also gave Samuel’s later “get a Lambo” pitch a history Affleck was not going to ignore.
The car ask was not the only test. In March 2025, a video shared on Instagram showed Affleck and Samuel at a sneaker convention. Samuel locked onto a $6,000 pair of Dior x Nike Air Jordan 1s.
Affleck’s line was pure dad economics:
"That's a lot of lawns you gotta mow there."
He later joked with Access Hollywood about what happens when a kid hears that price tag tied to real work. “That's what happens when you tell a motherf---er they have to mow a lawn,” he said. “All of a sudden they don't want those shoes.”
Samuel still argued. Affleck said the boy reached for the family bank account. The actor’s answer cut through the grift: he has the money; the teenager is broke. “You do not need thousand-dollar shoes,” Affleck told him.
On “Today with Jenna & Friends” in April 2025, Affleck spelled out the parenting rule behind the refusals. Loving kids, he said, is not the same as buying them out of effort.
"You love your kids. You want to give them everything and do everything for them, but I think you definitely do them a disservice by not connecting [if] you want something that you want, you have to work for that,"
That is not elite theory. It is the same bargain millions of parents enforce without a podcast or a rental lot full of exotics. You want it, you earn it. Handouts teach the wrong lesson.
Affleck has also said his children are unimpressed by Hollywood scorekeeping. On “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” he recalled wanting to make them proud after a rough career stretch, only to learn they barely track the résumé. “They don't give a s---,” he said. “They really don't care.”
What did register? Becoming a meme. December 2020 photos of Affleck juggling Dunkin’ iced coffees and Munchkins outside his Los Angeles home went viral. He later partnered with Dunkin’ in 2023 and directed its Super Bowl commercial. In his kids’ eyes, the beleaguered-coffee-run version of Dad beat the movie-star version. Seth Meyers asked if the goal is meme status. Affleck did not pretend otherwise.
He still co-parents Violet, Fin, and Samuel with ex-wife Jennifer Garner, whom he was married to from 2005 to 2018. His marriage to Jennifer Lopez, wed in July 2022, ended with a divorce finalized in January 2025. The family noise around him is constant. The standard he is setting for Samuel is simple.
A 14-year-old who asks for a Lamborghini after once tapping a BMW in one is going to hear no from a father who means it. Affleck is rich enough to write the check. He is choosing not to. That choice treats his son like a future adult, not a customer.
Hollywood sells fantasy for a living. A dad who answers a Lambo demand with lawns, work, and a flat no is selling something rarer: consequences.
