Honestly, Matt Damon is such a dumbass. We need to get out of this headspace where we’re like “oh, Matt is different, he went to Harvard, his mom is an educator, he can’t be this dumb.” No, he is. He is very dumb. Matt is currently promoting Stillwater (The Tears of an Overseas MAGA) and over the weekend, the Times published an exclusive interview with him. In the interview, he was trying to explain how our standards change over time and how the f-word, the homophobic slur, was “commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application,” and that he “made a joke, months ago, and got a treatise from my daughter. She left the table. I said, ‘Come on, that’s a joke! I say it in the movie Stuck on You!’ She went to her room and wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous. I said, ‘I retire the f-slur!’ I understood.” Now Matt Damon is saying that Matt Damon cannot be trusted to tell a story about how he used a homophobic slur. He made a statement (not an apology) to THR:
“During a recent interview, I recalled a discussion I had with my daughter where I attempted to contextualize for her the progress that has been made – though by no means completed – since I was growing up in Boston and, as a child, heard the word ‘f*g’ used on the street before I knew what it even referred to. I explained that that word was used constantly and casually and was even a line of dialogue in a movie of mine as recently as 2003; she in turn expressed incredulity that there could ever have been a time where that word was used unthinkingly. To my admiration and pride, she was extremely articulate about the extent to which that word would have been painful to someone in the LGBTQ+ community regardless of how culturally normalized it was. I not only agreed with her but thrilled at her passion, values and desire for social justice,” Damon said in a statement provided to THR.
He added, “I have never called anyone ‘f****t’ in my personal life and this conversation with my daughter was not a personal awakening. I do not use slurs of any kind. I have learned that eradicating prejudice requires active movement toward justice rather than finding passive comfort in imagining myself ‘one of the good guys.’ And given that open hostility against the LGBTQ+ community is still not uncommon, I understand why my statement led many to assume the worst. To be as clear as I can be, I stand with the LGBTQ+ community.”
I want to know which of Matt Damon’s gay friends and managers/publicists/agents immediately called him and yelled at him. I want to know their names!! Because they deserve a drink and a nap. I can’t even imagine how many people called him and yelled at his dumb ass. And notice how everything about the story has changed too – Matt told the Times that he said the word in a “joke” and that his daughter was appalled that he said it so casually. The new version is that Matt was speaking to his daughters about the history of homophobia. And now he claims that he’s never used the word in his personal life! Because we know he’s used it in his professional life (and his personal life).
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
The fact that he thought this was an appropriate story to tell in the first place and didn’t anticipate the blowback he’d receive for it speaks volumes tbh
That was my thought too. How on earth he thought it was an okay story to tell is mind boggling. Of course he had blowback.
From his NYT interview: “ Before it didn’t really matter what I said, because it didn’t make the news. But maybe this shift is a good thing. So I shut the f*** up more.”
And yet in the same breath…
This story reminds me of Liam Nelson’s story about how he used to be racist. I mean, what planet do these actors live on that makes them think everything that comes out of their mouths is deep, clever and meaningful? It’s like they think they have immunity or a free pass because they are famous.
I shared this story below before reading this. Neeson didn’t even think he was telling a racist story, he thought he was telling a story of how violent his thoughts had previously been in his attempt to identify with the character in the film he was promoting. He was shocked at the pushback and kept doubling down for awhile until he was finally made to stop. I still don’t think he ever came to recognize the racism the story he told revealed. He was just in danger of losing some roles if he continued doubling down, so he apologized.
I think both Matt and Liam think they are heroes in real life because they play heroes in movies. We don’t need them to rescue us. We can do it ourselves.
I think matt damon thinks he can do no wrong as he is made of teflon apparently and nothing of his bullshit has stuck to him. But i think that’s not true anymore. Nobody should get a pass and they should all be called out. The fact that in this day & age, to have the audacity to tell openly a story with words that we all know are offensive to communities upsets me and shows how disconnected he is from us, the peasants. Not cool at all. Matt damon not cool. Not cool since the day i read what he said to a black women that they didnt need to have black people working behind the scenes and that stooooopid “great wall” movie where white boy out of nowhere supposedly saves the whole Chinese dynasty just because… they didnt want/think one of the billions of chinese men could have the capacity to do it. Crap
@ Duchess L : I worked in China for several years teaching and I saw the Great Wall movie. It was beautiful from a cinematic point of view. But I found the premise so stupid as to be hilarious – I.e. China built the Great Wall to keep magical monsters out. It was not a movie people would take seriously. And yes, the great white savior theme was racist and tiresome. But it had Luhan (Korean boy band star) in it!
These white men are so insulated in their own myth of white supremacy and domination, more so as coddled actors, but there is *no* way he thought that slur was appropriate. Sorry but you live in the f-ing world, you have teenagers and people around including employees, seriously. They just think they’re somehow invisible and we don’t see the bullshit when they are the ones covered in it of their own volition. Disgusting every time.
@Anna
There is NO FREAKING way that as the “father of teenage daughters” in Los Angeles you would not know that word is not a word you use. Kids get expelled for using that word and his girls would have social media, ffs, and KNOW that word is not a “joke”
I know! I still can’t believe he thought that was appropriate to say to his daughter to begin with, but then even more so to tell it to the NY Times as a funny anecdote.
And now to claim he was only saying it to show her progress, which DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS what he said previously, that it was said as a joke and his daughter took offense…sit down, Matt. The gall of this dude.
@Isabella
Such typical white man fedora wearing MRA bullshit. They are the NICE GUYS who MEAN WELL, until you say no or call them on their bullshit and then the whiny “Victim” bullying narcissist comes out. He and Ben and are just two peas in a male privileged NICE GUY pod and I can’t stand either of them. I wish they were better, but c’mon how many chances do either of these man children get? If anyone other than a white man said something this stupid they would not get another chance, and he KEEPS doing it and KEEPS getting chances.
He’s still a d**che!!!!
Isn’t he saying the word in his interview with THR? And THR redacted it? Or am I getting it wrong?
I’m guessing his statement was written and he’s chosen to use hyphens or asterisks for the middle letters. Which is also so insane to me. Why wouldn’t he just write the “f-word” or “that word”????
Thanks for clearing that up. I was a bit confused.
The way he worded it and the fact that he pretty much used it in this statement makes me believe that he still uses it.
That is even more embarrassing. He actually wrote it down. It wasn’t an off-cuff remark, the way I thought.
Man scores own goal while trying to sound woke and enlightened
I think calling him “dumb” doesn’t require him to face up to his flaws. The fact is, he is not lacking intelligence. He is lacking character. I’d much rather put his feet to the fire over that.
I disagree Merricat, I really believe it takes a spectacular kind of dumbass to come out and say what he said in an interview. Character is a separate issue, and I agree this does not say anything good about his.
But bragging about this? That was dumbf*ckery. I have never seen anything from this guy that made me think he’s smart. Never.
Darla, I totally get why people think he’s an idiot, and I’m making a very fine distinction here, but I do think it comes down to character and white man’s privilege. I think he is simply not aware of other people and doesn’t care–remember how he treated Minnie Driver? It’s not that he doesn’t know better, it’s that he hasn’t ever HAD to know better.
Well, that’s true Merricat.
It’s not that he’s dumb, it’s that he’s so entitled and has been his whole life that he just assumes he’s right and that everyone will find him intelligent and charming. He gives his opinion and thinks that it is something everyone will agree with and maybe even change their minds because of. When he’s called out his first instinct is to be defensive and assume people just misinterpret him, not that he’s wrong. Entitlement and narcissism.
I understand what you and Merricat are saying now. I think that’s a very valid perspective and probably dead-on.
This was my take on the first anecdote. But the second statement was jaw dropping, because he basically said he didn’t say any of what he actually said! He may as well have just screamed “fake news” instead of having someone prepare that faux intellectual screed.
I agree. He may even be intelligent in the typical sense, but he has no emotional intelligence and even less of a desire to change that about himself. His arrogance is astounding.
Yes. He is incapable of “reading the room”, as it were.
Agreed. Just like calling these folks who stormed the capitol dumb. They are dangerous terrorists. Let’s call it what it is. As @D said, the entitlement and white male privilege means he has never had to think about his words and actions and *character*. Times up.
You know, there’s a town in Massachusetts named Harvard – maybe he went there instead? 😉
Over the last decade or so, he has really shown how out of touch he is with a lot of social issues. He really lives in his own little white, straight dude world. I don’t buy the story in this statement either, as the original story he stated he would “retire” using the slur. So, yeah, he’s probably been using it.
I’m the same age as him. My mom made it very clear to me never to use the f-slur. I believe that was in 1978. Damon is full of crap that he didn’t know the word was a slur.
Yeah, his original story was that he made a joke a few months ago involving that word, his daughter schooled him, he was moved and said he was retiring that slur. Ugh. His kid must have access to some positive influences somewhere though, when it comes to dehumanizing language. It’s not always easy, especially at that age, to stand up for what’s right. Especially when it involves a person in a position of power, and respect and love are involved.
I’m sure he does think he stands with the LGBTQ+ community and that he’s not a part of the problem. But slurs that like are a HUGE part of the problem, pretty much regardless of the context. It’s not dissimilar from someone insisting they’re not racist because they know the n-word is bad and they would never use it to describe a black person but they might use it in a joke here or there and that’s not really the same thing so therefore they aren’t racist.
So yeah I bet you he is getting some phone calls and texts this week from friends.
Also, Matt, you really just could have kept your mouth shut. No one is focused you right now(cough Bennifer cough)
Becks, maybe that was the problem? He’s got this new film coming out he I think was planning on riding to Oscar, and no one is talking about it, they are all talking about Bennifer. And they even ask him about Bennifer in every interview. Maybe he didn’t like that and this was his “clever” (on account of he went to Harvard so has a big brain, really kind of a stable genius you might say) way of getting attention back?
He doesn’t actually say he’s never used it in his personal life, he says he’s never called anyone the f-word in his personal life. I assume he was being intentionally careful with his words there, because you never know what’s on video.
And chances are near 100% that he *has* used this word in front of an LGBTQ+ friend or co-worker (especially in his industry) who couldn’t call him on it because he’s the STAH! Just because you don’t use it as a slur to their face doesn’t mean it isn’t violent.
This x 1000000
That is a careful distinction, isn’t it?
He’s a privileged moron with his head up his own a**.
I know this isn’t the point but Ms Knox wrote a scathing, thoughtful piece about them using her arduous journey, her trauma, her life, as basis for this movie and using her name in all publicity for this movie.
It is well worth a read.
The letter’s contents were discussed here a couple of days ago.
If he wanted talk about the changing norms, why did he feel he had to make up a story about it? He’s stupid.
So now he was talking about the history of homophobia rather than telling a joke. Sure, Jan. So basically he’s just lying now. Wonder if #mattdamonisaliar will start trending.
It should. He is totally lying. What a sh^tshow.
That’s what I got when I first read it, that he’s totally changing his story and saying he was having a conversation with his daughter about how far we’ve come socially and how people used to say the word but now they don’t and she got mad at the thought of anyone even thinking it was acceptable back then. But I’ve reread it a few times and I think it’s very cleverly worded to give off that idea when what he’s actually saying is that (things he left out in parenthesis):
“I was just telling the interviewer about how my daughter and I had a conversation (instigated by my daughter’s anger after I randomly made a joke using the F word and she got mad) about the history of the F word and I was (trying to excuse myself by…) telling her that people actually said that all the time back then when I was growing up (and it was a joke anyways, geez, I didn’t mean it!) and I even had a line in a movie that used the word (which I quoted, using the word). My daughter was incredulous that people (including me) thought it wasn’t hurtful back then or now even if was used often and casually (and she ran off to her room to write a whole treatise to explain to me why it wasn’t funny or okay and she convinced me to retire the word). Isn’t it amazing how far we’ve come socially, interviewer!”
Can I just say that this and the Hilaria Baldwin thing are my favorite scandals of the past year? The hubris of these two!
The interesting thing is that Matty’s best friend Ben has been openly scandalous for years (the gambling, the alcoholism, the strippers, the nanny). I’m sure Matt has used that to his advantage while he hid and was quietly disgusting. Unfortunately for Matt, Ben is having his best summer in a long time and can’t be used as a proverbial meat shield right now.
Pepinogate might me my favourite gossip story of all time!
Pepinogate 😂
LOL my Spanish isn’t that great and I had to look that one up, but it’s perfect.
Good grief, what a jackass. As a fellow New England gen x er, I can confirm that f*g was a common slur when we were kids. But everyone knew what it meant by the time we were in 2nd grade. It was never funny or jokey for the person it was directed toward, it was anti gay. And we all knew it.
Agreed. I was a Gen Xer in CT in the late 80s and I never used that word but I had friends use it all the time as an insult. I never called them out (which I regret) but I had one awesome brave friend who did. But yea, we all knew what it was. And everyone has known it’s wrong for at least two decades. He’s also completely changed his story now (or I should say his publicist has – his team clearly worked on this all day yesterday), which means that he isn’t even an adult enough to apologize and admit he was wrong. Ugh, ever since he Damonsplained to Effie Brown I’ve been over him, but between this and his #notallmen/as the father of daughters nonsense, I’ve reached a new level of disgust with him. But he’s a white straight cis dude, so he’ll be fine.
I’m a Boomer (64), and even when *I* was a kid, we knew from a *very* young age it was a derogatory word! There’s *no* excuse to use it except to hurt and demean/humiliate someone.
I think Matt Damon tried to & did get ahead of something that was going to be made public!
He knew if he didn’t, he would be facing the backlash like Chrissy Teigen!
If Matt Damon has used that slur, you can bet that Ben Affleck has as well! Matt even said that he was texting Ben during his yacht trip with JL. Wonder what they could be talking about? I bet we can guess..Stay tuned, I think we will get a quote from him , as well!
We don’t know that Ben uses that word.
Let’s let Matt be blamed for what Matt did. And leave Bennifer out of it.
@ Isabella
Let’s hope not but if the media can ask Matt about Bennifer, don’t you think they won’t ask or try to ask Ben about Matt’s slur?
I actually could see Ben saying this over Matt…maybe because of the characters that Ben has played on screen in his early days….
His face always bugged me ugh… I always thought Ben was more artistic and smart than this man
I always thought he and Ben looked like generic frat boys. Never got their appeal, never will.
I never got the appeal of Ben, either. Not at all.
Yea they both are like two frat boys who never grew up because they didn’t have to. They are in a time warp of their own making because theyre in the business of make believe and have been coddled and protected. Like someone up thread said they aren’t dumb as much as entitled and lacking character.
A problem entirely of his own making. What did he think the reaction would be? “awe old man just now realizes in big ass 2021 that the f-word is a slur, aweee”????
He really though he did something, didn’t he? Probably because rich cis-het white men get cookies for the absolute bare minimum of human decency.
So Mr. Damon is saying that because he grew up listening to the f word being used in his environment he can’t stop sayiing it? That’s a pathetically lame excuse.
While we’re on the subject, the word “lame” is used a lot on this site and I encourage folks to google why it is ableist language.
Doesn’t lame refer to a sick animal? I’ve never heard it used in reference to people, at least not in the US.
It’s problematic, whether it’s referencing people or not. Think of it like the r-word or calling something you find silly “gay”. Please give it a quick search (Is “lame” ableist?)
Disability activists like Imani Barbarin and Alice Wong are great folks to follow on social to start learning more.
He’s just a jerk. Pure and simple. During the end of President Obama’s first term he was upset that the president didn’t go all and in his words “Go out with some balls.” He’s a misogynistic a**hole and an entitled baby. If never heard from him again it would be too soon.
Man snitches on himself, doesn’t get the response he’d hoped for, & then tries to take the whole thing back? Got it. He should pull a Beyoncé and stop giving interviews cause this is a mess!
What’s truly amazing is that in this non-apology he has re-framed himself as some kind of enlightened teacher, explaining to his daughter how people used this word without understanding the pain it brought. When in actuality he upset his daughter so much by using it that she felt the need to write out in depth why he shouldn’t use it.
“To my admiration and pride” like he’s responsible for her compassion and empathy. She’s compassionate and empathetic *in spite* of him.
He’s f****** infuriating.
Yes. Good point about his daughter. Perhaps she has those qualities innately and/or has had them modeled to her by her mother.
Good point. It was the child who had to correct and school her homophobe dad and he just switched it all around to save his own ass. Wow. What a narc.
Right? If I were his daughter I’d be pissed at this too. She did the right thing here, and because his fragile white male ego got dinged, he’s not trying to turn it around so that he was the wise teacher. Please.
“ I recalled a discussion I had with my daughter where I attempted to contextualize for her the progress that has been made…..” by doubling and tripling down on how when he was a kid it was totally fine, and that’s how he’s always heard it and used it, it’s just a joke. He wasn’t “justifying” himself and his use of the word, he was “contextualizing” the past ways in which the word was used (by people in general, not him specifically, of course). He “had a discussion with his daughter” (instigated by the daughter) about how (the daughter believes) it’s always been super hurtful and wrong (and he now agrees with his daughter).
But the way that he words it makes it seem like he, as the parent, instigated this conversation with the goal or talking about how far we’ve come and how much progress has been made. Just casually quoting some random trivia about the context in which people used to use this word and think it was fine. Can she believe it? Crazy, right? Because when we hear “a discussion I had with my daughter,” we assume that the parent is the one who wanted to teach the child something. That’s how it usually goes. We “have a discussion with our kid” when they’ve done something wrong, or have a question about something, or we need them to learn a certain lesson, or tell them something important. It implies that we are the ones imparting information to them because we have decided that a discussion is needed right now. Really though, this was a discussion that his daughter had with him. She is the one who schooled him about the inherent hurtfulness of using a homophobic slur. He—or his PR people—are really being manipulative with how they’ve worded it.
not only should his daughter be educating him (though does he deserve all that emotional labor? no, only because he has a platform it’s the responsible thing to do) but Amy Too knows *exactly* what’s going on with the Doublespeak.
That’s a whole lotta ‘splaining
Damonsplaining.
At least he managed not to talk about Harvey Weinstein I guess.
I only learned recently he went to Harvard. I always thought he was a dumb dude-bro who lacks self-awareness LOL.
“I have never called anyone ‘f****t’ in my personal life and this conversation with my daughter was not a personal awakening. I do not use slurs of any kind.”
If you’re just throwing it around at the dinner table in front of the kids, you use slurs. And now he’s just flat out lying about the situation with his daughter, because yesterday’s story was completely different.
Well, after rereading what he said in the first interview, I see now he never said he uses the F word. He talked about it being commonly used when he was young with a different application. He never said he used it as an adult.
Then he said a few months ago he was telling a joke and his daughter got upset and he explained to her it was in his movie, like that’s okay. So I guess he was repeating his movie scene to her from Stuck on You. She got upset and wrote out that treatise for him, that it was not okay even in that context. So when he said to her he retires the F word, I think he meant even in a movie scene or ever repeating that line from his movie again, which is what he did when his daughter chastised him.
It was still bad and tone deaf, but after rereading the interview, I see he never said what I thought he said before, which is casual use of the word as an adult, which floored me. He was still wrong when he said it was a different application back when young. No, it was a slur. Just because it was directed to friends, not at a gay person, the meaning of the word was still a gay slur. Just like kids back years ago kept saying, “That’s gay. That’s so gay.” That was a thing for a while. I remember my niece back in the day saying it once because she heard it at school among her schoolmates,, and her mom had to sit her down and explain why that’s wrong. She never used it again.
The whole beginning damage control part where he said he was going over the history of the word, LOL. That’s fabrication. He probably went over the history of the use of it when young back in the day after he was chastised by his daughter, explaining how common it was back in the day calling friends that, but not directed at gay people,, and she was horrified and went and wrote out why it was never acceptable.
Maybe his daughter should be raising him, not vice versa.
Total fabrication. Maybe that’s what the conversation turned into, that’s not what it started as. It started as Jim using in a slur in the context of telling a story, which he clearly still thinks of / thought of,as okay.
He’s telling on himself in so many ways.
I don’t remember the movie Damon himself referenced-in which the slur was used-but wasn’t he an Oscar winner at that point? Why didn’t he use his Hollywood clout to object and say, “this is offensive, and I won’t even say it as a bad joke.”
Hmmm…
Bad enough he was even in “Stuck on You.”
He threw is daughter under the bus in this statement.
So he wants the MAGA crowd to see the movie so bad……
And I have also written off Tom McCarthy.
Between this and the Showtime series about Ailes, he is telling us who he is now.
Mmmkay Matt. Thanks for the words, now let’s see some allyship in action.
Double post, sorry!
Shades of Liam Neeson who himself told a story of his racism without realizing his racism was on full display for the world to see. I truly believe that neither Damon or Neeson understand the depths of what they did, or likely even really care and that’s the problem with these guys. There will be no real consequences, they’ll just be more careful going forward in what they share because they prefer to be thought of as good guys. The only consequence if you can call it consequence is that guys like Neeson/Damon now realize that people will have negative thoughts about the things they say that they used to getting away with saying without push back.
EXACTLY! I was thinking the same thing!
Great comparison. Man, too many have forgotten that Neeson interview. And great point that neither he nor Damon will fully grasp why what they said/did was so wrong. The bubble of privilege these men live in, ugh.
couldnt have put it better myself you hit the nail on the head
The statement was somewhat well written but ultimately angry and pretty much full of it. Just a guess, some publicist wrote it and he re-edited it to make it worse.
So, just to be clear, Matt Damon is taking a page out of Ted Cruz’s book and dragging his daughter into this mess, too?
His statement doesn’t track to what he initially said, if he was having the conversation he now claims he had with his daughter he would not have said he’d been using the word as recently as a few months ago, he would have described it as “I used it once in a conversation with my daughter to show how bad things used to be and she lit me up for even using it in that context, she wrote a treatise about it and I was so proud of her”. It’s almost like he wanted to get himself canceled so he can say he was wrongfully canceled.
Here’s his original quote-
“ I made a joke, months ago, and got a treatise from my daughter. She left the table. I said, ‘Come on, that’s a joke! I say it in the movie Stuck on You!.’ She went to her room and wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous. I said, ‘I retire the f-slur!’ I understood”
Will no one think of the extraordinarily wealthy, middle-aged cis-het white men?
unfortunately the uber wealthy middle aged cishet white men are living rent free in our heads
I’m about to make a horrible stereotype but I’ve yet to meet a person from Boston who says things in a way that are politically correct.
2003 was 18 years ago, why is he using that as a defence? He really is the Team America version of himself.
i’m LGBTQ and was 13 in 2003. i remember EXACTLY how intense and over the top and gnashing for blood the homophobia at the time was and i didnt even live in the south. i dated someone who was probably trans/nb but hadnt realized it yet (and it never occurred to me at the time i dont think i even knew most of the terminology we use for trans-ness even though i actually spent 2 years trying to figure out if i was trans myself (im not, but im trans-adjacent) and im pretty sure when i started i diddnt even KNOW the word “transgender” — anyway, the person i mentioned had been beaten badly at home regularly for being caught wearing feminine dresses and makeup.
the homophobia was actually so bad that i started turning down relationships with other LGBTQ people once that particular one ended (i’m bi/pan) and always ended up dating guys but my preference was HEAVILY influenced by the homophobia at that time; i actually had a preference for women over men in many ways but that preference was actively skewed by how homophobic the environment i grew up in was.
i lost out on many relationships with other girls that may have been less toxic and abusive for me had i had the guts to come out to them–or not turn them down when they came out with their feelings for me. it was just too scary.
He needs to work on clarity of expression if the thinks that any of these comments are demonstrative of his allyship.
He only mentioned the story in the first place because he thought that it was a cute family story to tell during an interview sort of like “look what a progressive family we are”. It screams loudly of just how much he lacks awareness of what is happening in human society and that he really does not care of anything or anyone outside of his circle of white, cis men pals.
He strikes me as someone who doesn’t care unless it hurts his bottom line. I’m not sure what category that is. Highly inconsiderate, but worse than that.
I’m kind of surprised he didn’t check with his publicist before telling the story.
Lmao. I love how it never occurs to him to stfu. Ever time he’s interviewed, he has to have corrections and follow-up statements and explanations. Such an idiot
Right?!? Just stop talking!
By his own admission previously he said he had stopped using it months ago (Not yrs ago). Funny most of us growing up in Matt’s era even in Hicksville USA knew it was a slur.. how does a kid in Boston not know? Yeah right..
i read a blind item that something is going to be coming out with him using the slur and he told admitted this whole slur thing to get out ahead of it instead of being cancelled. Time will tell, i guess.
This actually makes sense….
I don’t understand why he’d admit this unless he was trying to get ahead of something.
Why would he issue a denial claiming he’d never called anyone that in his personal life though?
Wouldn’t he just let the video or whatever come out and then issue a statement saying he’s deeply sorry and he learned a few months ago why it’s such a terrible word? The denial would just make him look like a liar when the hypothetical video or whatever it is, comes out.
He said he didn’t use it in his personal life. But maybe he used it in his professional life….
He originally said he used it as a joke at the dinner table with his daughter. I would count that at his personal life so I didn’t quite understand what he was counting as his personal life.
*sigh* I guess putting his foot in his clueless privileged mouth is an annual event now.
I wish Matt should shut up about his daughters. He seems to think it’s okay to rip off the Amanda Knox story if you are a father yourself. So he is using his daughters to promote his awful movie.
The movie makes Matt’s MAGA dad the center of the Knox story, not the female victim or the falsely accused young woman. It’s gross that he and the director/producers/writers did that.
I wish he wouldn’t talk. Every single time he says something he puts his foot in his mouth. I think it’s because he thinks he’s above reproach.
No, you do not.
He’s an idiot and definitely casually homophobic, likely without realizing it, but as long as he’s not voting for politicians who strip away LGBT+ rights, I can deal with people like him. He needs to shut the hell up, of course, but as with Rowling, I feel like if you go too deep into demonizing them, you will ultimately create a situation where they’ll go harder right out of resentment instead of trying to be better. A bad ally is better than an outright enemy to me in the long run. One can change, the other won’t care to. Celebrities live in insanely privileged bubbles, so it doesn’t surprise me when they aren’t challenged on this shit way earlier.
I was born in 1985 and always knew this word was inappropriate to use, even when it was used a lot. Do these people live under a rock?
Did he do something to his face ….I say yes!
Remember when he mansplained/whitesplained to a black female producer that was talking about the importance of representation, that that wasn’t really a problem?
It was in the moment that I realized that he is totally clueless, I don’t think he believes other people’s experiences if he has not personally experienced them. I mean look at his relationship with Harvey Weinstein, him and BA both knew what was going on, but didn’t frame it through the lens of HW being a predator, rather HW just liked women and it wasn’t their problem.
As far as I’m concerned, Matt Damon is just someone I roll my eyes at, and go yeah sure, whatever you dum dum.
If we all grew up with enlightened, non- racist parents, MAGA families wouldn’t exist. I’m 45 years old. Boys I went to high school with called each other the f word all the time. My step father used racial slurs when I was a child through my teen years.
Matt is, probably inadvertently and regretfully, showing that this type of thinking exists. I see it around me. And yes I call it out when I hear it but lots of people are not nearly as enlightened as most of the CB commenters or their parents.
He’s not really from a MAGA-type family though. He’s perceived as being from a more liberal, progressive and educated background — the opposite of MAGA.
I could picture someone like Brad Pitt probably having grown up with boys like this. But I don’t think he’s ever going to tell a story about it quite the way Matt Damon did (i.e at 50 years old, my daughter schooled me about this word she refers to as a slur.) Even the way Matt Damon described his story was a little weird considering his age (how did he not know the word is a slur?)
Alternative facts are lies
The word is mostly used by males not females. It also depends on where you grew up and when. I never used it and never heard it that much. Now my husband grew up in the Bay Area and heard it all the time growing up. Guys said it causally to bust each other’s balls. No one took it seriously. He knows better now but we can’t assume everyone grew up the same way. In fact his friend accidentally texted a pic to a wrong phone number and the other person responded by calling him the F word as a joke.It’s still being used.
We can’t assume everyone grew up the same way. But the fact that he told this story and thought it would make him look good is probably what has most people puzzled, not necessarily that he might have used it as a 15 year old.
Nice try Matt….no go – you are stupid and privileged and gross. The end.
I find it best to assume that most of the anecdotes told by actors on press tour are not true. I swear, half the time they are making them up on the spot just to have something to say, free improv style, which is why they reflect so badly on them.
This is also why actors are pre-prepared most of the time with a bunch of acceptable anecdotes that they roll out in virtually every interview.
My guess is that both versions of this story didn’t happen, there was no conversation with his daughter about homophobia at all, but he can’t possibly admit that he was making the original story up on the spot and so didn’t quite realise it made him sound like he was calling people f** all the time until just a few months ago.
This guy is so clueless that he thought inserting this story would endear him to people. He is clearly living in a bubble of privilege where he can’t hear what an asshat he sounds like. I was already done with him over his treatment of Effie Brown. He just reaffirmed that he has literally learned NOTHING from that incident.