Matt Damon Finally Shares the #MeToo Opinion We Want to Hear From Him: “I Should Get in the Back Seat and Close My Mouth”

Matt Damon invited some much-deserved criticism when he shared his opinions about the #MeToo movement. “There’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?” he said back in December. “Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?”

Of course, no one was conflating them. They were just saying that both are unacceptable, and that both exist on the same spectrum of attitudes toward women that creates our garbage patriarchal hellscape. But Damon probably would’ve realized that if he’d spent some more time listening.

In an appearance on the Today show today, he admitted that he should have listened more and kept quiet. “What have you learned from that whole experience?” asks host Kathie Lee Gifford.

“Well, I really wish I’d listened a lot more before I weighed in on this,” Damon says.

“You’re a good listener, though, Matt,” Gifford offers.

“Well, no. Not in this case,” Damon says. “I think ultimately what it is for me is I don’t want to further anybody’s pain with anything that I do or say. So for that, I’m really sorry. And you know, Time’s Up … a lot of those women are my dear friends, and I love them and respect them and support what they’re doing, and want to be a part of that change, and want to go along for the ride. But I should get in the back seat and close my mouth for a while.”

You can see Damon’s full interview at YouTube below. He spends most of the interview talking about his initiatives with Water.Org, but you can watch the segment about his response to #MeToo starting at around the 4:26 mark.

One hopes—hopes—that Damon has learned something from this, even if that lesson is the one that comes so effortlessly to most of us: “Shut up if you don’t know anything.”

Then again, we all know what the other explanation for this new self-awareness could be:

(Via Pajiba; image: screengrab)

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Marykate Jasper