Fans went wild in April when photos of Jennifer Garner and her three kids going on walks around their Los Angeles neighborhood with their pet cat – in a stroller – first emerged.
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Now Jen's explaining how and why her family started taking the feline out for some fresh air. On the June 15 episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," the actress acknowledged the absurdity of the situation, which has, thankfully, worked out well for everyone — including the cat.
"One of my kids was not into going for walks and we just had to get out of the house," Jen told Ellen, explaining her efforts to get the children out for some exercise a few weeks into California's coronavirus lockdown, which began in March. "And I said 'What can we do? We have to just commit to going for walks.' And she said, 'I want to take the cat.' So we ordered a cat stroller."
Jen's family — who also owns two dogs as well as chickens who provide them with eggs — was first photographed walking the cat in early April. "I blame Jessica Seinfeld. I want Jessica Seinfeld to know that I blame her because she's like a cat lady, and all of a sudden now I have a cat and have a cat stroller and I take it for walks. And it has a leash," Jen told Ellen, referencing comedian Jerry Seinfeld's philanthropist and cookbook author wife.
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Ellen, who shared that she has a stroller for one of her elderly dogs that has arthritis, asked Jen if the cat enjoys the stroller jaunts because from the photos, "It looks a little like, 'Why am I in here,'" Ellen noted. According to Jen, "I think it's happy to go out and about. It's very titillated by the whole adventure. It's into it."
The cat also recently made an appearance in one of Jen's Instagram videos. On May 18, the actress posted a hilarious clip of herself doing all sorts of low-key bonkers things inside her laundry room — including dancing and drinking wine. The cat made a cameo — and promptly fell off an island covered in clothes. "I don't know why I thought you needed this. 🤷🏻♀️🧺 🍷 🐈 👵🏼🙈😬♥️," the actress captioned the video, which is set to the track "Think About Things" by Icelandic singer Daði Freyr and his band Gagnamagnið.
During the June 15 chat with Ellen, Jen also talked about how her kids with ex Ben Affleck — Violet, 14, Seraphina, 11, and Samuel, 8 – have been holding up amid quarantine and what they do to maintain a routine.
"Everyone's really good. [The kids have] been great. We have our moments, of course, but I think they really get the kind of call to action of staying put, and working hard to keep your chins up, and they're cleaning the house and helping out and it's — they've been really good," Jen said.
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"Every Sunday, we [clean] the whole house — we do everything," she added. "My son, I finally let him do his bathroom on his own — he's the 8 year old. And I walked in after and the whole bathtub was gray. He had put so much bathtub cleaner in it and then just filled it with water and emptied the water out. So it had coated the inside of the tub and it took my like 20 minutes of scrubbing.
"So we had a take a step back and say, 'That was thorough — there was a lot of cleaner — but it would have eaten your skin off. So let's try again,'" Jen explained.
