US Star With $80M Net Worth Says She 'Panicked' About Money After Divorce: 'I Have to Take Care of These Kids'

Jennifer Garner has an estimated $80M (£58.6M) fortune, a stake in a food company that floated on Wall Street this year, and a Hollywood career stretching back more than three decades. Money, she now admits, once frightened her.

The fear took hold after her marriage to Ben Affleck ended. Years spent raising the couple's three children had pulled her away from acting. She told the podcast Aspire with Emma Grede, in an episode released on 25 August, that the divorce forced her to confront money for the first time.

'I panicked when I was first out of my marriage,' she said. What frightened her was a blunt calculation about responsibility. 'I have to take care of these kids,' she recalled thinking.

The worry was practical. Hollywood pay does not climb automatically with age, she noted, and being known is no substitute for a salary. 'It's not like you can just un-famous yourself,' she said, pointing out that fame does not cover the cost of living.

By her own account she had never given much thought to money, and the reckoning was sudden. 'I need to be an earner here,' she said.

From Panic to a Public Company

Her response was methodical. Garner said she and her long-time manager mapped out the work she could take while raising three children in Los Angeles, ruling out the long location shoots that had once been routine. 'I can't leave these kids for 6 months at a time,' she said.

Once Upon a Farm, the organic children's food company where she is a co-founder and chief brand officer, became central to that plan.

Garner came aboard in 2017, at the age of 45, and grew into the brand's public face, helping it reach roughly 10,000 stores including Target, Publix, and Whole Foods. In February 2026, the company listed on the New York Stock Exchange at $18 a share, valuing it at about $724M (£531M).The stock climbed around 17 per cent on its first day of trading, and the flotation raised close to $198M (£145M).

Company filings set out what the venture pays her. Garner earned $1M (£733,000) last year in her 'Farmer Jen' role.

She is due between $2M and $3M (£1.5M and £2.2M) a year through 2028, on top of stock options and a bonus tied to the listing. Forbes estimates that her film, television, and advertising work, including long-running deals with Capital One and Neutrogena, has earned her at least $125M (£91.6M) across her career.

For all that, Garner said money does not preoccupy her. Told by Grede that she had been the company's biggest shareholder before the listing, she said the wealth had not changed her. 'I convince myself that I'm broke,' she said, adding that she gives much of it away. She has also said she could not read a spreadsheet when she started in business, and only recently learned that a figure shown in brackets meant a minus.

What Divorce Costs Women

Garner's experience reflects a pattern that reaches well beyond Hollywood. Research from Legal & General found that a woman's household income falls by roughly half in the year after a divorce, compared with about 30 per cent for men. Nearly a quarter of divorced women told the insurer they felt financially vulnerable, and almost one in five struggled to cover everyday costs.

The reason is largely structural. Men are still far more likely to be a marriage's main earner, so when one household splits into two, the lower earner takes the steeper fall. Pensions compound it.

The insurer found that only 13 per cent of divorcing couples considered them when dividing assets, even though they are often a marriage's largest single asset. Women, more likely to have taken career breaks, tend to reach retirement with smaller pots.

Garner and Affleck met on the set of Pearl Harbor in 2001 and married in 2005, separating a decade later. They share daughters Violet, 20, and Seraphina, 17, and son Samuel, 13. Garner said she does not regret the years she spent largely at home, describing them as a chance to raise her children while she worked less, before her circumstances changed.