Minnie Driver was as unaware that Matt Damon was going to end his relationship with her as the rest of the world was.
A successful relationship's basic requirement is communication. No matter what the issue is, a timely conversation to solve the matter can save it from getting worse. Even when the situation is as serious as a breakup, both the parties involved in the relationship need to know about the reason leading to the split, it's the respectable and right way.
While many know it, they try to avoid face-to-face confrontation and prefer to break up over a text or a call. This is the worst way a person could say goodbye to someone they loved once upon a time. Actor Matt Damon broke up with this then-girlfriend Minnie Driver in the worst way possible. He chose national television as his platform to tell her that he didn't want to be with her anymore. Can you believe it?
The two met at the auditions of Good Will Hunting in 1996. Driver was head over heels for Damon by the time the pair shot their first scene together. In an interview with The Telegraph, she revealed that she was was “completely in love with Matt” and added, "I was blown away by his commitment to me as an actor, he was cute and intelligent and altogether a really charming package. I was young and I fell for him — it’s an occupational hazard.”
The pair seemed to be doing well together. While they never spoke about their relationship openly, they did appear together on various occasions, which was a hint to their blooming romance. Driver looked extremely supportive towards Damon and Ben Affleck's greatest bromance of Hollywood. But their relationship took an unexpected turn when Damon graced Oprah's show.
After winning an Oscar for his role in Good Will Hunting, Damon was asked to appear at The Oprah Winfrey Show. When the show host asked him if he had someone special in his life, he responded that he did not have a girlfriend and he was single while, not to forget, he was still in a relationship with Driver for more than a year. Like everybody else, even The Riches actress was shocked.
Astonished and embarrassed, she had no idea that Damon was planning on breaking up with her, reported Instyle. How would she know? Just a month back Damon had appeared on Late Show with David Letterman and said that she "pretty much rocked my world." Not only did she feel disrespected but bitter as well. The open announcement had left her feeling helpless and alone.
Opening up about the situation in 1998, Driver told Los Angeles Times, "It’s horrendous breaking up with someone anyway, but to have it be so public and to be cast in a role that I would never play if they were paying me–this wronged woman! 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 [the Late Show with] David Letterman a month previously."
Even though years went by, the wounds of the past were still fresh for Driver. She told Telegraph that the success which came with Good Will Hunting was huge and it changed their relationship. "Suddenly, the interest in Matt and me as a couple went bonkers. But then we split up very publicly that April, which was grim, and it turned from this beautiful thing into something so dark," said the 50-year-old actress.
She wished for a better closure with Damon and said, “I’m always really sad that we didn’t stay friends because it was absolutely incandescent making that film. It was a beautiful experience and I’m so proud of that time," said Driver, according to Cheat Sheet.
But the L.A. Confidential actress doesn't miss the chance to get back at her ex for how he treated her. According to The Guardian, Damon had made some controversial statements about women's abuse for which he had to later apologize. He had said there's “a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation. Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.”
He also added that it was “wonderful that women are feeling empowered to tell their stories and it’s totally necessary" but "we live in this culture of outrage and injury, that we’re going to have to correct enough to kind of go, ‘Wait a minute. None of us came here perfect.’” The comment didn't go well with many and Driver especially.
She responded on Twitter and wrote, “Gosh it’s so interesting (profoundly unsurprising) how men with all these opinions about women’s differentiation between sexual misconduct, assault and rape reveal themselves to be utterly tone deaf and as a result, systemically part of the problem.”
She later told Guardian that her response was a desperate attempt to voice herself. She said, "... I’ve realized that most men, good men, the men that I love, there is a cut-off in their ability to understand. They simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily level."
References:
https://www.instyle.com/news/tbt-matt-damon-minnie-driver
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jul-26-ca-7110-story.html
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/16/minnie-driver-matt-damon-men-cannot-understand-abuse
