On Monday, new photos surfaced on the internet of Justice League actor Ben Affleck and his nasty back tattoo. Almost two years after claiming his massive back tattoo was fake and something he only got for a movie, Ben was spotted showing off the ink while shirtless in Hawaii. The back piece is a full colour picture of a phoenix taking flight which completely covers up Affleck’s back. The public got the first glimpse of the tattoo in the summer of 2015, shortly after the actor and Jennifer Garner announced their split.

Affleck told Extra’s Mario Lopez in March 2016, “It’s fake for a movie. I do have several 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 a while.” After the recent appearance of the tattoo, the Twitterati had a field day at Ben’s expense.

Look at it below…

The feelings are mutual

While Affleck may have gone on the record about how the tattoo wasn’t real, it didn’t stop his exes from speaking out about the inking. In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2016, Jennifer Garner hinted that she wasn’t the biggest fan of her ex’s back tattoo. “You know what we would say in my hometown about that? ‘Bless his heart’,” she told the publication. She further added, “A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario? I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes.”

On the other hand, Jennifer Lopez who was previously engaged to the actor, had a blunter response and said that the tattoo was awful. In an interview, JLo said, “His tattoos always have too many colours, they shouldn’t be so colourful. They should be cooler.”

Affleck, 45, was photographed during a training session alongside Charlie Hunnam, Oscar Issac and Garrett Hedlund as the co-stars prepared for their upcoming film Triple Frontier. The actor has a dolphin on his right hip covering up the name of his high school sweetheart. He also has been seen with barbed wire across his right bicep, a large design featuring a fish and a skull and crossbones on his right arm and some initials inscribed on his shoulder blade.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 21, 2018 06:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).