The Hilarie Burton video isn’t the only footage to surface Wednesday of Ben Affleck groping an interviewer.
An installment of the Canadian show “Box Office” shows TV personality Anne-Marie Losique sitting on Affleck’s lap during a 2004 interview for his movie “Jersey Girl.” The resurfaced video, in which Affleck repeatedly nuzzles and hugs Losique and refers to her breasts, made the rounds on social media on Wednesday.
“They would like it better if you did this show topless,” Affleck, who slurs his words somewhat, says in the video as Losique sits on his lap. “Why can’t we do the interview like this?” he then asked her, wrapping his arms around her.
Although the video is being criticized online, Losique told TheWrap Wednesday that the behavior in the video was “all for the cameras.”
The flirtatiousness between she and Affleck happened “naturally,” stemming from Affleck imitating her accent, Losique said. “It turned out into this fun thing,” she said, adding that in Quebec at the time, her interviews with Affleck were “immensely popular.”
“Everybody wants a new scandal, but it’s not,” she said. “It wasn’t a big master plan, by the way — not on his side, not on my side.”
The behavior was “really, just for the cameras,” she said, adding that off camera, Affleck was very professional and even asked her about Quebec politics of the time. “He was very knowledgable,” she remembered.
She told TheWrap she hasn’t maintained a relationship with Affleck in the years since.
Losique said that she thinks it’s inappropriate that the video is being shared amidst sexual harassment and sexual assault accusations flying around Hollywood, because it is being viewed in the wrong context.
“If I had felt it was improper, I would have stopped it,” she said. “There’s a difference between humor and real situations of real power abuse… If I had been touched inappropriately, I would certainly do something.”
In the video, Affleck asks Losique: “You usually show a lot more cleavage than this, what’s the story? Why are you covering it up today?”
“It’s Sunday morning,” Losique replies.
“That’s never stopped you before from getting them t***ies out,” Affleck says.
Losique told the LA Times back in 2001 that sitting on his lap became a schtick between the two during interviews. “It’s something that started a long time ago. Now I’m always on his lap,” she said. “I don’t have to prepare anything. It’s very easy. But I never get to ask him any questions. Never in five years.”
Later in the video, Affleck asks Losique if she has a boyfriend in Montreal, and then fakes a French accent to say “I make love with different men, one day for the week, depending what mood I am in, because I take lovers like I take showers.” Losique kept her head down for most of the “interview,” and at one point playfully slaps him when he’s talking about her sex life.
“These breasts are very firm — suspiciously firm,” Affleck says at one point in the video.
Earlier Wednesday, Affleck came under fire after a video surfaced of the star groping “One Tree Hill” actress Hilarie Burton during a taping of MTV’s “Total Request Live” more than a decade ago.
On Tuesday, Shanice Brim tweeted “[Affleck] also grabbed Hilarie Burton’s breasts on TRL once. Everyone forgot though.”
Burton replied: “I didn’t forget.”
Affleck later issued an apology on Twitter, saying, “I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize.”
The lewd behavior has come to light just days after Affleck denounced Harvey Weinstein, who has been fired from The Weinstein Company after several accusations of sexual harassment and assault.
Losique also told TheWrap she had met Weinstein years ago at the Toronto International Film Festival and “he said, ‘come to my suite, we’ll be more comfortable.’”
“I don’t go into guys’ suites because I want to avoid those kinds of problems,” Losique said. “I don’t go into actors’ rooms. I don’t go into producers’ rooms.”
Losique said the response to the resurfaced video was “completely unexpected” because usually people find her interviews with Affleck funny. “Those kinds of interviews popped up on and on because people liked it,” she said.
“[I] understand people might be shocked by it in this context,” she said, adding she’s “not really happy it’s mixed in with all of this.”
Watch the full video above.