After falling in Love with the Set of Good Will Hunting, Minnie DriverAnd Matt DamonOne of the most talked about breakups in the late 1990s.
“I don’t care who you are, that is agony and it’s like a strange, surreal dream,” Driver said in a May 2022 interview with Entertainment TonightAbout seeing her split from Oscar winner Damon play out on the pages of magazines. Driver spoke out about her relationship with Damon and the attention-grabbing ending in her new memoir. Managing Expectations: A Memoir in Essays.
“I know he didn’t put that picture there. It’s so tricky, because it’s not deliberate, he couldn’t have helped how famous he became and how his life was being picked over, in the same way that mine was,” she said.
The Riches star continued: “It’s funny now, when I think about walking down the magazine aisle in my local supermarket at midnight with my best friend, we were like, ‘Are you seeing this? This is super weird.’ My friend, Alexandra was like, ‘Oh, my god, I can’t believe this is happening. I feel like we’re in a movie. I would totally watch this movie, even though I know you’re super heartbroken, but this is really weird.’”
The Bourne Identity actor publicly broke up with Driver in January 1998, after stating that he was “single” while appearing on a talk show to promote their film. He was soon linked to Winona RyderBut he was with the Grosse Pointe BlankActresses were forced to continue interacting during awards season, when they both received critical acclaim. Good Will Hunting. All of the attention led to some awkward moments — especially for Driver.
“There’s a guy who’d been sent, the cameraman at the Academy Awards — he’d literally been told to, like, stay on me and he was so in my grill, he was like a wildlife photographer waiting for the kill,” the England native recalled to ET. “He was just waiting for the moment that I was going to break or something was going to happen, or I was going to get up and scream. He’d been told, ‘Stay on her, bud. Something’s gonna happen.”
After the Oscars, the couple split. Damon got married Luciana Barroso in December 2005 and they have four daughters: Stella, Isabella Gia, Gia, and Isabella. Driver, on her part, welcomed Henry in September 2014. She is currently dating Addison O’Dea.
They would again be headlines in December 2017, when the Big NightStar publicly attacked her ex-boyfriend for making controversial comments about sexual misconduct. “I’ve realized that most me men, good men, the men that I love, there is a cut-off. They simply cannot understand what abuse is like on a daily basis,” the Governess star told The Guardian at the time, referring to Damon claiming there’s a “spectrum” to misconduct. “I honestly think that until we get on the same page, you can’t tell a woman about their abuse. This is something a man cannot do. No one can. It is so individual and personal, it’s galling when a powerful man steps up and starts dictating the terms whether he intends it or not.”
Keep scrolling for all Damon and Driver has to say about their relationship.
