Ben Affleck had a mostly naked poster of Prince on his wall at age 9: 'My mom was very understanding'

• Ben Affleck had a poster from Prince's "Controversy" record on his wall at age 9.
• The poster shows Prince posing mostly nude against a tile wall.

Ben Affleck had a poster from Prince's "Controversy" record, which features the artist posing almost-naked with his arms above his head against a tile wall, when he was nine years old, the actor said on "The Kelly Clarkson Show."

While promoting his newest film "The Tender Bar," Affleck told Clarkson that his favorite musician as a child was Prince, who he called a "genius." His admiration extended to his bedroom walls, where he mounted a poster that was released with Prince's 1981 album "Controversy" — his most recently released when Affleck was nine years old.

The cover art for "Controversy" features Prince, who died at his estate in Minnesota in 2016, wearing a wide-lapel purple jacket, foregrounded against a collage of newspaper headlines. However, as Yahoo! Entertainment reported in 2016, the poster art included inside the album hearkened back to the cover for his 1980 album "Dirty Mind," showing the artist once again in black underwear and with an exposed torso.

"I was nine years old, I was a big Prince fan, that poster came in the 'Controversy' record," Affleck said. According to him, following prompting by Clarkson, his mom was "very understanding" about the revealing poster.

"I took the poster, I put it up, thinking, 'Yeah, that's the guy, that's the artist I like,'" Affleck said. He recalled how his mom reacted when she came into his room and saw it: "I watched like 15 thoughts go through her head and she was like, 'That's lovely.'"

Affleck most recently starred in the Amazon film "The Tender Bar," directed by George Clooney, alongside Daniel Ranieri, Tye Sheridan, Lily Rabe, and Christopher Lloyd. The film is currently available to stream on Prime Video.