At first, it was real and then it was 'for a role'.

However, after reappearing after Ben Affleck was recently spotted on a beach, fans were again left wondering whether his huge back tattoo of a phoenix was in fact real, or whether he'd had it re-done for another film role.

Now, the actor has finally addressed the matter of the large inking on Twitter, after a profile of him in the New Yorker apparently rankled.

The piece, titled 'The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck', referred to him as an 'exhausted father', called the tattoo 'garish' and said: "Ben Affleck’s is the kind of middle-aged-white-male sadness that the Internet loves to mock - a mocking that depends on a rejection of this sadness, as well as a hedging identification with it."

His response, to be fair, was both pretty good AND seemed to confirm that the tattoo is, in fact real.

See below:

 

People liked his response, as you'll see below: