Violet Affleck Details Arguing with Mom Jen Garner in a Hotel as Their Palisades Neighborhood Burned Down

Violet Affleck continues to use her voice to find solutions for public health.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner‘s eldest child is currently a freshman at Yale University and published an academic research paper in the school’s Global Health Review on Sunday, May 18.

Violet, 19, who has been outspoken about public health and the COVID-19 pandemic, recalled her experience of living through the Los Angeles wildfires that devastated the Pacific Palisades in January. The student explained that, along with finding similarities between the response to the wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, she found that she and her mother had different interpretations of the dangerous situation.

“I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room,” she explained. Garner, 53, was “shell-shocked, astonished at the scale of destruction,” Violet wrote. Despite that, Violet was confused by her mother’s reaction. “As a lifelong Angelena and climate-literate member of generation Z, my question had not been whether the Palisades would burn but when.”

She also noted that the miscommunication wasn’t just between her and her mother, but with her younger brother, Samuel, 13, as well.

“‘Did global warming have to do with the speed of the wind?’ ” she recalled Samuel asking. She continued, “Hopefully, most of us understand the climate crisis better than my little brother.”

Garner and the Oscar winner, 52, who were married from 2005 to 2018, share three children: Violet, 16-year-old Seraphina and Samuel.

Violet concluded her paper by comparing public health protocols administered during climate disasters and airborne disease transmission. She also argued that climate scientists should recognize the “methods and the political commitments” that COVID-conscious and disabled people have made.

Before her college career, Violet appeared at a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting in July 2024 to discuss COVID-19 precautionary measures. During the public comment section, Violet called to keep mask bans at bay, likely in response to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass discussing in June the possibility of creating a mask ban that particularly targeting protesters, according to The Guardian.

She also opened up about a private health matter she faced five years earlier: a post-viral condition.

Garner has continuously celebrated how her daughter is a “self-starter.” And in a November 2023 Live with Kelly and Mark appearance, she said, “I’m proud of her no matter what.”