Ben Affleck (Photo : Twitter/BenAffleck)
"Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" star Ben Affleck recently requested PBS to not feature his slave-owning ancestor on "Finding Your Roots."
A recent email leak between "Finding Your Roots" host Henry Louis Gates and Sony chief executive Michael Lynton revealed a private discussion about one of Affleck's ancestors, according to TIME.
"Here's my dilemma: confidentially, for the first time, one of our guests has asked us to edit something about one of his ancestors - the fact that he owned slaves. Now, four or five of our guests this season descend from slave owners, including Ken Burns. We've never had anyone ever try to censor or edit what we found. He's a megastar. What do we do?" Gates wrote to Lynton.
Affleck's name was never deliberately mentioned in the email thread but the subject of the conversation was repeatedly referred to as "Batman."
Meanwhile, Gates released an official statement to The Associated Press where he talked about the show's integrity.
"Once we open the door to censorship, we lose control of the brand," he said.
"For any guest, we always find far more stories about ancestors on their family trees than we ever possibly could use. We decided to go with the story we used about his fascinating ancestor who became an occultist following the Civil War. This guy's story was totally unusual; we had never discovered someone like him before," Gates added.
Affleck appeared on "Finding Your Roots" last year. As of late, he has not yet commented regarding the reports.
