Sony hack shows Ben Affleck asked PBS to censor his slave-owning ancestor

Leaked emails from the Sony hacking show that Ben Affleck asked that the history of an ancestor, who owned slaves, be censored from his appearance on Finding Your Roots.

Affleck appeared on the PBS series, which discussed his Freedom Rider mother, an ancestor from the Revolutinary War and his third great-grandfather last October, the Huffington Post reports.

However, a hacked email posted to WikiLeaks Thursday shows that Affleck requested that PBS edit information about his ancestors out.

The email shows Finding Your Roots host, Henry Louis Gates Jr., seeking the advice of Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton regarding Affleck’s request, according to the New York Daily Mail.

"For the first time, one of our guests has asked us to edit out something about one of his ancestors -- the fact that he owned slaves,” Gates wrote in the email dated back to July 22, 2014. Gates was seemingly stumped about violating PBS’ rules ‘even for Batman.’ Gates also noted four or five other guests on the show also had ancestors that were slave owners.

Lynton’s response was to give Affleck his wish and take the information out of the documentary if no one knew about it. "I would take it out if no one knows," Lynton wrote, "but if it gets out that you are editing the material based on this kind of sensitivity then it gets tricky. Again, all things being equal I would definitely take it out."

In a statement Friday, Gates defended their decision to edit out Affleck’s ancestor by saying that it wasn't as interesting as other aspects of his ancestry.

"We focused on what we felt were the most interesting aspects of his ancestry — including a Revolutionary War ancestor, a 3rd great-grandfather who was an occult enthusiast, and his mother who marched for Civil Rights during the Freedom Summer of 1964," he said. Gates added that the show has never been shy about documenting unpleasant chapters of a family’s past.

PBS also stated that they stand by Gates "independent editorial judgment" for deciding what should go into an episode, The New York Daily Mail notes.

Image Courtesy of INFphoto.com