Some months ago, twitter had itself in a flap over Ben Affleck's humongous phoenix tattoo, and whether it was real or not and his status as a Harry potter fan. 

Anyway, after convincing the internet that it was real, Ben has now revealed to Extra TV (at the 1:30 mark) and Mario from Saved By The Bell that it's not real at all: “I actually do have a number of tattoos … but I try to have them in places where you don’t have to do a lot of cover up... they get sort of addictive, tattoos, after awhile." That's all very nice, but what of the back tattoo? Seemingly it was "fake for a movie." Shocker. 

Seemingly even ex-wife Jennifer Garner played along with it being real. In an interview with Vanity Fair, when questioned about the tattoo, the actress (who hails from West Virginia) said: "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.”

His other most notable ex, Jennifer Lopez, also had some thoughts on the tatt during her stint on WWHL: "It’s awful! And I would tell him that. I would tell him, what are you doing? It has too many colors! His tattoos have too many colors. They shouldn’t be so colorful, you know what I mean? They should be, like, cooler."

Consider yourself informed, Ben, should you ever choose to get the real thing at some point.