Matt Damon waded into the sexual misconduct debate again on Friday
Matt Damon has waded into the debate over sexual harassment once again, complaining that men in Hollywood who aren’t predators don’t get enough credit.
‘We’re in this watershed moment, and it’s great, but I think one thing that’s not being talked about is there are a whole s**tload of guys – the preponderance of men I’ve worked with – who don’t do this kind of thing and whose lives aren’t going to be affected,’ Damon told Business Insider on Monday while promoting his upcoming movie, Downsizing.
‘I don’t do that, and most of the people I know don’t do that,’ he said.
Damon added that he would have second thoughts about working on a project with someone under the could of allegations, saying: ‘I mean, I wouldn’t want to work with somebody who — life’s too short for that.’
Damon made the remarks while promoting his new film Downsizing (pictured), opening Friday
‘But the question of if somebody had allegations against them, you know, it would be a case-by-case basis. You go, “What’s the story here?”‘
Damon’s sense of nuance on the question of the sexual misconduct scandals has already drawn fierce backlash in recent days.
In an interview last week, he said: ‘I do believe that there’s a spectrum of behavior, right? And we’re going to have to figure – you know, there’s a difference between, you know, 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, right?’ he told ABC News’ Popcorn With Peter Travers.
Those remarks drew scathing rebukes from his ex-girlfriend Minnie Driver and actress Alyssa Milano.
‘Good God, seriously?’ Driver tweeted in response to his claim.
Ex-girlfriend Minnie Driver unloaded on Damon for remarks he made last week
The mother-of-one said: ‘You don’t get to be hierarchical with abuse. And you don’t get to tell women that because some guy only showed them their penis their pain isn’t as great as a woman who was raped.’
Driver’s career took off following the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting, written by Damon and Ben Affleck and produced by the Harvey Weinstein, whose accusers launched the current wave of scandals sweeping Hollywood.
Milano piled on on Twitter, writing: ‘Dear Matt Damon, It’s the micro that makes the macro.’
‘We are in a “culture of outrage” because the magnitude of rage is, in fact, overtly outrageous. And it is righteous.’
‘We are not outraged because someone grabbed our asses in a picture. We are outraged because we were made to feel this was normal. We are outraged because we have been gaslighted. We are outraged because we were silenced for so long.’
Alyssa went on to compare the ‘spectrum’ to stages of cancer, in that some are more treatable than others but it’s still the same disease.