Jennifer Garner has really built up her whole brand on being a “relatable mom.” I like Garner going back to her Alias days. I know she and Ben Affleck used to do those church and farmers market type family walks for the paparazzi, but since they’ve been divorced, she seems to be a lot more lowkey. I could not even tell you who her new boyfriend is or what he looks like. Part of Jennifer’s public persona is doing videos on Instagram. In a recent video, she showed her followers what’s in her backpack. It starts out innocent, with pens, books, an iPad, and candy. Then, things start to get a little nutty.
“What’s in my bag? I’m embarrassed to even show you …. 🥜🌰🥜🐿️,” Garner, 51, teased via Instagram on Saturday, November 25. The actress proceeded to pull everything out of her backpack for her followers to see. The contents started out normal enough, with a notebook, glasses case and “a little pouch of pens because pens are life.”
However, the Family Switch actress quickly learned that like a squirrel she hoards nuts — and candy — for the winter.
“A little tiny bag of nuts,” she said while pulling a plastic bag out of her carry-all. “I’m gonna keep these … just kidding.”
Garner was then surprised to see that she had another plastic bag of nuts and multiple prepackaged varieties of the food item, including two pistachio snacks, in her bag as well. “Nuts. Nuts. Nuts. Nuts,” she said as one by one she unveiled another bag.
The 13 Going on 30 star broke into laughter and started to cry as she kept finding more nuts. “I’m so scared I’m not going to have any nuts,” she joked through her tears, revealing that she counted eight bags in total.
Garner’s second biggest bag revelation was that she had both empty and full bags of candies hidden deep in her backpack. “Gotta have your candy handy,” she joked after finding two bags of the same brand. While Garner also carried two books and an iPad, it was her food choices that caught the attention of her fans and friends.
“You are adorable ❤️,” Courteney Cox replied in the comments, while Mindy Kaling agreed, “Pens are LIFE.”
Reese Witherspoon, meanwhile, wrote what many of Garner’s followers were thinking, commenting, “So many nuts!! Are you a squirrel? 🤣.” One fan went as far as to call Garner “the Mary Poppins of nuts.”
“The Mary Poppins of nuts” is absolutely hilarious. The entire video is a really fun watch. It’s also relatable to someone like me, who carries around a tote bag full of “What if I need these?” items when, really, I would get by just fine with only a clutch, lol. I am also a person who believes that pens are life and The Giver (in her bag because she’s reading with her son) is one of my favorite books. The bag is, well, a Relatable Mom bag.
But back to all the nuts! You never know when you’re going to get hungry and nuts are a good snack option. The immature part of me wonders if she was also giggling at saying the word “nuts” so many times. My kindergartener once brought home a school library book that was about a squirrel hunting for nuts and by page four, I was crying from laughing so hard. Every sentence was something to the effect of, “I love nuts! Nuts are yummy! I want to eat some nuts!” I truly burst out laughing every time I said the word. Then, my nine-year-old heard me laughing and came into the room and started chanting “Deez nuts.”
Also, I may be the last person to know this but just in case I’m not, here’s a little PSA: Last night, I discovered that Alias is on Disney+ and Amazon Prime. It really gave me a hankering to do a rewatch. I love the first three seasons of that show and it’s been a good 15 years since my last rewatch. (It was possibly right after The Hangover came out.) It may be time to revisit the world of Sydney Bristow and the yummy Michael Vaughn.
Photos credit: Janet Mayer/startraksphoto.com, IMAGO/RW / Avalon and via Instagram
Lainey called it her nut bag …
I loved that video and just how tickled she was by the endless supply of nuts in her bag. Such a fun watch!
Garner is adorable in the vid. On a superficial note: I wish she would get a new stylist as she never looks very comfortable or very “her” in her photo-op clothes.
I don’t know how comfortable she is, but she looks very pretty in them. Princess Keen should save the hairstyle in one of her Pinterest boards. Jen looks about 10 yrs younger than her anyway, and I love her hair in all of the photocall pics.
Relatable mom?! With a luxury backpack that costs over $1000? Not quite
But she didn’t brush her hair, so you busy working moms can relate.
So what, to her that’s the same price as a Jansport. I know plenty of women that sport handbags costing several thousands of dollars, not where I spend my money, but who cares.
I dislike all the Garner hate. She has a great Instagram, love her fake cooking show clips. Seems like a great mom that tried her best for her family while dealing with her alcoholic ex.
what is the brand?
I once decided i needed to carry dental floss with me. Emptied my bad and found 6 packs of dental floss.
As to the pricy backpack. At least she has taste. That was gorgeous leather, a brand I’d never heard of, no logos anywhere. If I had the kind of money she does, I certainly hope I’d buy something beautiful, rather than something people would recognize immediately as super expensive. And as bags go, all these little bags you see stars carrying around are 5-10,000. And people who know bags can clock the price immediately.
Maybe I’m not her target audience but good grief this woman makes my eyes roll to last Sunday. She is so calculating and nothing about her seems genuine.
I’m probably a jaded a..hole for saying this, but I didn’t find it charming. To me it was humble bragging about reading all the books with her kids. I read with my kids too, but don’t carry all of the books we are reading at the moment with me. Her daughters are in their teens, why is carrying their books with her? Then she lost me with the hysterical laughing in clown pants. I don’t want to hate on her, I just didn’t feel like this was very charming or genuine.
Yeah you’re just a hater. As a teacher I can say the fact she reads with her kids even at that age (or maybe especially at that age) is fantastic. It is SO important for reading literacy, really the most important thing you can do as a parent and her kids will carry a love of reading forever.
I can see it. When my kids were in their mid-teens, I would read the same books they were reading so I could talk to them about it. It gave me something specific to ask about rather than trying to pull teeth about their day or school. So I did the same thing – carried books around that “we” were reading.
OK, what does it say about me that my favorite part of this story was Rosie’s reaction to hearing “nuts!” repeated so many times? If I had been reading that squirrel book to my kid I would have been in absolute stitches! I wouldn’t have been able to finish. “I love nuts! Nuts are yummy!” LMFAO. Yes, I am 12.
My mother was once complaining about her insurance company to me, my daughter (then about 20) and her friend who was visiting. Her insurance company is Chubb. She was saying “I used to love Chubb! Chubb is good! But I don’t like Chubb any more!” At first we were just smirking but by the time she finished we were all laughing so hard we cried. My mother was puzzled but undeterred in her Chubb diatribe.
It’s a holdover from having young kids that I still have emergency snacks in any bag I carry and nuts are my perfect snack, protein good fat last a long time. I could easily find a million packs of nuts in my own bag not checking to see if I already had a snack and throwing another pack in just to be safe.
I did an Alias rewatch a few years ago, the first few seasons are great and it held up pretty well.
JG gets so much unnecessary sh!t around these parts, FFS. (Not from Rosie, from the comments.) I’m not rich and I love nice things. Let her have her expensive purse. I like her and think she’s pretty genuine in her mom role. She grew up in the Midwest with a close-knit family, and she’s imported that to her LA life.
I have a kiddo who would get HANGRY from her baby days (I’m talking full-on screaming fit in the backseat on the way home from daycare pickup when I had literally nursed her for 30 minutes immediately before leaving) so I relate very strongly to the snacks. I still always have snacks because you never know!! Said kiddo is now 11 and can better regulate her emotions, but she still goes from “I’m a little hungry” to “meltdown city” to this day. It’s just part of her, lol!
I will say this on every JG post until the end of time. The amount of respect I have for her incredibly graceful, empathetic response to Ben’s relapse knows no bounds. That picture of her grim-facedly handing him his bag of fast food in the backseat of her SUV on the way to rehab sticks with me. This is a woman who loves her kids, and who takes family seriously.
I loved the video, I shared with friends and family members, and I recognized that level of hysterical laughing when you’re gasping for air that comes from genuinely being amused. I just took it at face value and got the biggest kick out of it. At any given moment my bag has too many notebooks, too many bottles of Tylenol, loose baby socks (still? my kids are 9 and 7), and a smooshed granola bar. I don’t need to be in the same income bracket to feel like someone is relatable, or to discount her life because it’s different from mine.
This is a blog, with a comments section in which people can express their opinions on celebrities that don’t have to align with yours.
I guess I didn’t notice how expensive her bag was. I was mad she didn’t deep delve into what is in her pen case, lol. I agree pens are life. I wanted a closer look at her candy, lol.
I don’t know what it cost or the name but It was nothing compared to the little Birkin bags that many celebrities or wanna be celebrities carry everyday in LA but that’s okay let’s slam her for an expensive backpack that is thousands of dollars less because it’s Garner. They make MY eyes roll.
If I was a celebrity I would own a massive collection of luxurious expensive handbags. I would show them off on YouTube and Instagram.
I own expensive handbags. I am not rich.
I love celebrity “What is in my handbag?” videos. They are so inspiring.
I have some really nice backpack handbags too.
I am giving the side eye about how expensive her bags is. We don’t know how she got the bag. It could be a gift, sponsorship, thrifted lucky find, bargain of the year clearance sale. She bought it full price with the money she earned and worked for. I say good for her.
I don’t trust people who criticize others for spending money.