Ben Affleck apologises for demanding his slave-owning ancestor be cut from family history show
A-lister Ben Affleck has apologised to fans after deliberately omitting details of a slave-owning ancestor from a PBS documentary about his family tree.
In a Facebook post, Affleck claims that he was ‘embarrassed’ by the fact that ancestor James McGuire owned eight slaves during the 1840s.
The star goes on to admit that he lobbied for the information to be withheld from the programme, as he didn’t want his family’s reputation to be tarnished.
He wrote: “After an exhaustive search of my ancestry for Finding Your Roots, it was discovered that one of my distant relatives was an owner of slaves.
'I didn't want any television show about my family to include a guy who owned slaves. I was embarrassed. The very thought left a bad taste in my mouth.'
He added: “It's important to remember that this isn't a news program. Finding Your Roots is a show where you voluntarily provide a great deal of information about your family, making you quite vulnerable.
“The assumption is that they will never be dishonest but they will respect your willingness to participate and not look to include things you think would embarrass your family.”
Affleck, who convinced producers of the PBS show to cut the slavery segment, claims that he has now regrets his decision.
He added: 'I regret my initial thoughts that the issue of slavery not be included in the story.
“We deserve neither credit nor blame for our ancestors and the degree of interest in this story suggests that we are, as a nation, still grappling with the terrible legacy of slavery. It is an examination well worth continuing.”
Adding an additional comment to his original post, Affleck wrote: "Thanks for the comments here. To clarify, because I see this story being framed as "censorship" on some sites, when I told Skip I was uneasy about the slave owner, he told me he had not included it in his preliminary cut because there wasn't much detail - a name and no details, so he wasn't going with it to begin with.
He also told me they would do a book later with a more complete story, and I said I would be happy to participate and talk about the issues more broadly."
