Minnie Driver calls Matt Damon romance ‘sweet’ with a ‘combustible ending’
Minnie Driver said her brief ’90s romance with Matt Damon was “sweet” before it ended with him announcing he was single on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”
“That was just a sweet romance that was just a sweet love affair in the center of all of that stuff, but had a combustible ending, which then became the focus,” Driver, 52, told Entertainment Tonight in a story published Wednesday.
“Another thing that my parents taught me, was there just isn’t any time to sit around feeling resentful or angry, just have to get on and everybody had a beautiful life.”
The “Cinderella” actress explained that her family “loved Matt,” but they “could see that this young man was rocketing really fast and so was I.”
“They were like, ‘This may well end badly for reasons that are to do with all these things coming together in a perfect storm.'”
Driver recalled seeing her breakup play out in the tabloids as a “surreal dream,” but she knew Damon “couldn’t have helped how famous he became and how his life was being picked over.”
Driver and Damon, 51, had a whirlwind romance from 1997 to 1998 after starring as love interests in “Good Will Hunting.” The “Jason Bourne” actor then went on Winfrey’s show and announced he was single.
“I was with Minnie for awhile, but we’re not really romantically involved anymore, we’re just really good friends. I love her dearly,” he told Winfrey, adding that they were still friends. “I care about her a lot. We care about each other a lot. It wasn’t meant to be and if it wasn’t meant to be then it’s not meant to be.”
A few months later, in July 1997, Driver told the Los Angeles Times, “It’s unfortunate that Matt went on ‘Oprah’; it seemed like a good forum for him to announce to the world that we were no longer together, which I found fantastically inappropriate.”
“Of course, he was busy declaring his love for me on David Letterman a month previously.”
In November 1999, Damon went back on Winfrey’s show to promote “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and denied that Driver had learned of their breakup from his announcement.
When asked if he was currently seeing someone new, he quipped, “I’ve pretty much learned that there can be no advantaged gained by putting that in the public consciousness.”
Damon married Luciana Barroso in December 2005 and share three daughters together: Isabella, 16, Gia, 13, and Stella, 11. Barroso also has daughter Alexia with her ex-husband.
Driver, meanwhile, has been dating filmmaker Addison O’Dea since September 2019. She shares son Henry with ex Timothy J. Lea.
COMMENTS