Ben Affleck's giant back tattoo is a fake.

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck

The 42-year-old actor caused a stir when he showed off a huge phoenix design while filming 'Live By Night' in December, and though he admitted he does have a number of pieces of body art, they're all in easy-to-conceal places and the eye-catching image isn't one of them.

Asked about the tattoo, he told 'Extra' presenter Mario Lopez: "[It's a] fake for a movie. 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."

Even Ben's ex-wife Jennifer Garner - who he split from last June after 10 years of marriage - was taken in by the fake tattoo.

The 'Miracles from Heaven' star - who has three children, Violet, 10, Seraphina, seven, and Samuel, four, with Ben - said recently: "You know what we would say in my hometown about that? 'Bless his heart.'

"A phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario? I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes."

And Jennifer Lopez - who dated Ben between 2002 and 2004 - recently slammed the artwork as "awful" and not very cool.

She said: "It's awful. And I would tell him that. I would tell him, what are you doing? It has too many colours! His tattoos have too many colours. They shouldn't be so colourful, you know what I mean? They should be, like, cooler."

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