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 Yorkerapparently 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: