Ben Affleck defends massive back tattoo after Ellen DeGeneres roasts him about it

Ben Affleck has had to defend his enormous back tattoo after Ellen DeGeneres poked fun of it today on her talk show.

The 46-year-old actor was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show when he was asked about the massive ink, which he got in the months following his 2015 split from wife Jennifer Garner.

"It's a phoenix," confirmed Affleck, to which an observant DeGeneres quipped was "rising from your ass."

"Yes, it's a phoenix rising from my ass," Affleck replied. "And I was about to say it represents something really important to me, but you know what? Maybe just, we'll skip that. It's meaningful to me. I like it.

"So [the paparazzi] got a picture of my tattoo," he continued, referring to when the world first laid eyes on the artwork in 2015. "And yeah, the sentiment ran, you know, against... I love my tattoo. I'm very happy with it."

But Affleck admitted that he has since received "not-so-much-positive" attention because of it -- and he's not wrong there. When his now ex-wife Garner was told of the ink, she took the opportunity to throw shade his way.

"You know what we would say in my hometown about that? 'Bless his heart,'" the 46-year-old told Vanity Fair in 2016. "A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario? I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes."

Affleck's ex-fiancée Jennifer Lopez -- who he split from in 2004 after two years of dating -- didn't sugarcoat her thoughts on the tattoo either, calling it "awful" during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live.

No wonder Affleck had tried to deny it was the real deal when pictures first surfaced of the massive artwork four years ago. The actor told Extra host Mario Lopez that it was an airbrush tattoo he was rocking for an upcoming project.

"[It's] fake for a movie," Affleck said at the time. "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 a while."