Matt Damon apologizes for his comments on sexual harassment
"I really wish I'd listened a lot more before I weighed in on this"
"I really wish I'd listened a lot more before I weighed in on this"
"I really wish I'd listened a lot more before I weighed in on this"
Matt Damon has apologized for his comments about sexual harassment and the #MeToo movement, which drew a slew of controversy when he waded into the debate last month.
"I really wish I'd listened a lot more before I weighed in on this," Damon admitted during an interview on .
"I don't want to further anybody's pain with anything that I do or say. So for that I am really sorry. 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...but I should get in the back seat and close my mouth for a while."
During an interview in December, Damon pointed out that sexual misconduct encompasses "a spectrum of behavior," and made the observation that there is "a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation."
While he acknowledged that both types of behavior "need to be confronted and eradicated without question, they shouldn't be conflated." In a separate interview with , Damon , "one thing that's not being talked about is there are a whole sh----ad 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."
Following Damon's comments, a number of people—including Damon's former co-star and ex-girlfriend —sharply criticized him for failing to recognize that even "minor" incidents of harassment are symptomatic of a much bigger problem.
"It's the micro that makes the macro," actress Alyssa Milano wrote in an open letter to Damon .
"I have been a victim of each component of the sexual assault spectrum of which you speak. They all hurt. And they are all connected to a patriarchy intertwined with normalized, accepted—even welcomed—misogyny."