Minnie Driver Rationalizes Matt Damon's Sexual Harassment Remarks: He's a 'Nice White Male'
Minnie Driver is once again calling out her former costar and boyfriend Matt Damon for his previous comments about sexual misconduct in Hollywood and beyond.
In December, Damon told ABC News that the alleged sexual misconduct of powerful men represented a “spectrum of behavior,” explaining that he believes there is “a difference between 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.”
He also said, “I think it’s wonderful that women are feeling empowered to tell their stories and it’s totally necessary.”
Driver, who criticized Damon for the comments at the time, told the New York Times on Tuesday that she feels Damon “represented every intelligent, nice white male who feels it is their job to comment on the way that women metabolize stuff.”
She added, “That somehow we should have a hierarchical system whereby touch on the arse is this, tits is this, you know, front bottom, back bottom, over the shirt, rape! That there would be some criteria.”
Driver advocated for involving men in the women’s movement, saying “there’s no way to move forward unless we do this together.”
In January, Damon apologized for his controversial comments, telling the Today show, “I really wish I’d listened a lot more before I weighed in on this. Ultimately what it is for me is that I don’t want to further anybody’s pain. With anything that I do or say, so for that I’m really sorry.”
Driver also told the NYT she supported a “model of truth and reconciliation,” referring to commissions that were established after the Rwandan genocide and South African apartheid, in which victims of violence were given a platform to speak.
“Women get to be heard,” she explained. “You get to be seen and heard and the accusers get to hear that and get to metabolize that and then there is due process and then there is healing.”
Driver, who costarred with Damon in 1997’s Good Will Hunting, also spoke again about how the film’s producer, now-disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein, did not want to cast her in the film.
“He didn’t want to cast me,” she said, explaining that the casting director didn’t think she was attractive enough to have sex with. “I got off lightly with him. I really did,” she added. “When we talk about sexual harassment, it’s not about sex, it’s about power.”
A spokesperson for Weinstein previously said that the producer did pull for Ashley Judd to star in the role that ultimately went to Driver, but denied that Driver was considered not attractive enough for the part.
“While Ashley was the top choice for Miramax and Mr. Weinstein, the role went to Minnie Driver, who was the star and director’s preference,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Minnie did a brilliant job and he believes Ashley would have as well.”
Last year, Driver opened up about her own experience with sexual assault as a teen. “When I was [17], I was on vacation in Greece, and this guy, kinda elbow-grabbed me, and said ‘You’re going to dance with me,’” she said on Sirius XM’s StandUP! with Pete Dominick. “I said ‘no’ and I pulled my arm away from him, and he grabbed me by the back of my hair. I tried to kick him, and then he punched me.”
