The stars of “Good Will Hunting” didn’t just share the screen. They also shared a real-life romance. But, alas, they didn’t ride off into the sunset together.
“Well, I’m single,” Matt Damon declared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in January 1998. He had been with Minnie Driver for a time, but their romantic connection had fizzled out.
“We’re just really good friends,” Damon continued. “I love her dearly… I care about her a lot. We care about each other a lot.” He seemed to accept the end of their romance with a philosophical shrug. “It wasn’t meant to be, you know? And if it’s not meant to be, then it’s not meant to be.”
But Driver wasn’t thrilled with Damon’s public announcement. She found his choice of venue for the breakup news rather distasteful. “It’s unfortunate that Matt went on Oprah,” she told the LA Times later that year.
She thought it was a bit much for him to announce their split to the world on such a public platform. “It seemed like a good forum for him to announce to the world that we were no longer together,” she said. But to her, it was “fantastically inappropriate.”