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Larry Wilmore summons Ben Affleck’s slave-owning ancestor

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Ben Affleck appeared on an episode of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots” last year, but one tidbit you didn’t see in the series hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr. was that Affleck’s ancestors owned slaves.

According to emails from Gates to Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Affleck asked for the revelation of his slave-owning ancestors to be scrubbed from the program, a decision Gates expressed discomfort over doing. The exchange was part of the WikiLeaks info dump of e-mails hacked from the Sony servers.

When Affleck’s episode aired last year, there was no mention of slave-owning ancestors.

But now that the info is out there, Larry Wilmore decided to go straight to the source, summoning up the ghost of Affleck’s long-dead slave-owning ancestor on Monday’s “Nightly Show.”

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“Cassius Beauchamp Affleck VI” appeared at Larry’s desk and revealed that, though the A-list movie star and director may be ashamed of him, he’s actually more ashamed of Affleck.

How is that possible, you say? What transgressions could the modern day Affleck have undertaken that would surpass the owning of slaves?

One word: “Gigli.”

Check out the rest of the segment here.

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Twitter: @patrickkevinday

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