Minnie Driver has opened up about her split from Matt Damon while addressing why she looked so "devastated" watching him and Ben Affleck pick up the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "Good Will Hunting" in 1998.
Driver broke her silence on the ordeal after video footage of Affleck and Damon's acceptance speech from that year's Academy Awards reemerged on social media.
"Minnie looks so sad," one Instagram user commented on the video, which was posted by the popular Movie Shmood Instagram account, prompting Driver to reply directly to the comment.
"Matt had ended our relationship a few weeks before this, and was at the Oscars with his new [girlfriend] … I was devastated," she wrote. "Wish I could have celebrated more as it was an amazing moment for all of us, and for this wonderful film."
Driver and Damon first crossed paths portraying love interests in "Good Will Hunting." Their relationship began in 1997 during filming but ended in 1998. By the time the 1998 Oscars took place, Damon had started dating Winona Ryder.
Before the Academy Awards ceremony, Damon openly discussed his separation from Driver while appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
"I was with Minnie for a while, but we're not really romantically involved anymore, we're just really good friends. I love her dearly," he told Winfrey, according to the Independent. "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."
Driver went on to address Damon's remarks in a 1998 interview with 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," she said at the time. "Of course, he was busy declaring his love for me on David Letterman a month previously."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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