Matt Damon‘s wife of 20 years originally had eyes for his best friend.
While making the rounds for The Rip with his longtime pal and collaborator Ben Affleck, Damon made a startling revelation. Long before he married wife Luciana Barroso, she watched Good Will Hunting and walked away with a crush on the wrong actor.
“This is f—ing completely true,” Damon began during a Jan. 12 visit to The Howard Stern Show. “After we’d been together for probably a few months, I think I met her best friend from high school and it came out that the two of them went and saw Good Will Hunting together and her best friend thought I was the cute one and [Luciana] thought Ben was the cute one.”
Damon continued, “So she admitted to me. I’m like, ‘You got the wrong one?!’ She told me that 23 years ago.”
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Obviously amused, Stern joked that something like that “stays with you” and Damon agreed, quipping, “Well, I remember it now, Howard.”
Affleck jumped in, pointing out that he has since worked with Barroso many times over the years. She most recently served as a producer on their Netflix conspiracy thriller, The Rip.
“She’s a great producer and a really good friend,” he shared. “And I never got that vibe from her. So I think something I did in real life rubbed it off.”
Damon laughed, adding, “Finally she met him and all that went away.”
When Stern joked that it would be “devastating” if Barroso “left” Damon and “ran off with Ben,” the actor wholeheartedly agreed.
“If my two favorite people just exited my life?” repeated The Odyssey star. “Yeah, that would suck.”
Damon’s partnership with Affleck has lasted nearly their entire lives. The Cambridge, Mass.-bred duo met at eight and 10, growing up blocks apart from one another and bonding over their shared desire to break into Hollywood. Together they were the writers and stars of 1997’s Good Will Hunting, which earned them an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
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Damon’s relationship with Barroso began five years later, in 2002, when they crossed paths in Miami while he was filming Stuck on You. They tied the knot within two years and have since welcomed three daughters: Isabella, 19, Gia, 17, and Stella, 15. Damon is stepfather to Barroso’s 25-year-old daughter Alexia from a previous relationship.
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During their conversation with Stern, Affleck noted that he’s had the pleasure of being able to “witness a lot of beautiful, lovely things” from the couple “along the way” of their 20-year relationship.
He added, “It’s a really gorgeous marriage and friendship and two people who when they’re apart and independent of one another are one another’s partner. I didn’t see the first day, but I have a feeling it’s improved.”
Watch Damon and Affleck laugh off his wife’s old crush in the clip above.