When the nation found out that Ben Affleck was going to receive the Humanitarian Award at the 2015 People's Choice Awards, quite a few of us probably shook our heads and said, wait, do you mean Batman? But, guys, we are wrong about Ben -- so wrong. Not only does he deserve the award for his work with the Eastern Congo Initiative, which he founded in 2010, he deserves it because he doesn't think he deserves it. Ben's humble, honest, and sweet acceptance speech gave us butterflies like it was 1997 all over again.
The father of three, who has visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo nine times, accepted the award from Amy Adams and immediately praised her instead of focusing on himself. He then joked that he has been called a lot of things in life, but "humanitarian" is probably not one of them.
Ben spent the bulk of his speech praising the people he works alongside, whom he calls true, dedicated humanitarians, and insisting that they deserve the award more than he does. And, yes, he seemed incredibly sincere.
He also shared what he says he learned from his experiences overseas -- namely, that the one thing everyone can do to help is show just a sliver of kindness to others.
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I'll be the first to admit, I don't always take Ben seriously because he has been in so many blockbuster films and it's easy to see him as a big, hunky movie star. But his speech came across as genuine and I'm looking forward to seeing more of this side of Ben that I didn't know about.
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What did you think of Ben Affleck's speech?
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