Actress Minnie Driver has opened up about her past romance with actor Matt Damon, saying that while their relationship was “sweet” it ultimately had a “combustible ending.”
The pair, who starred as love interests in the 1997 film “Good Will Hunting,” dated from 1997 to 1998.
However, in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Driver revealed that the relationship ended when Damon appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and announced that they were no longer together.
“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, said.
She went on to explain that her family “loved Matt,” but could see that both he and she were “rocketing really fast” and were aware that their relationship “may well end badly for reasons that are to do with all these things coming together in a perfect storm.”
Driver described seeing their breakup play out in the media as a “surreal dream,” but added that Damon “couldn’t have helped how famous he became and how his life was being picked over.”
She also said that her family had taught her not to “sit around feeling resentful or angry,” and that it was important to “just have to get on and everybody had a beautiful life.”
In 1997, Damon appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and announced that he and Driver were no longer romantically involved.
“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 said, 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.”
However, in July of that year, Driver told the Los Angeles Times that she had found Damon’s announcement “fantastically inappropriate.”
“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,” she said.
“Of course, he was busy declaring his love for me on David Letterman a month previously.”
In November 1999, Damon returned to “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to promote the film “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” and denied that Driver had learned of their breakup from his announcement on the show.
When asked if he was 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 went on to marry Luciana Barroso in December 2005, and the couple have three daughters together: Isabella, 16, Gia, 13, and Stella, 11.
Barroso also has a daughter, Alexia, from a previous marriage.
Driver, meanwhile, has been dating filmmaker Addison O’Dea since September 2019, and has a son, Henry, with ex-partner Timothy J. Lea.
