Matt Damon he married his wife, Luciana Barroso, for more than 20 years, but it turns out that his eyes were initially drawn to his best friend Ben Affleck.
“That’s completely true,” Damon, 55, began during the Monday, Jan. 12, episode. The Howard Stern Show after asking if Affleck, 53, was around the night he met his wife. “After we’d been together for a while, probably a few months, she admitted that, I think I met her best friend from high school and it turned out that they both went and saw Goodwill Hunting together and her best friend thought I was the cute one and she thought Ben was the cute one.”
He added: “So she admitted to me… I was like, ‘You made a mistake?!’ He told me 23 years ago.”
When host Howard Stern Asked by Damon if hearing something like that “stays with you” over the years, Affleck and Damon noted that the trio now often work together: Barroso, 49, is a producer on The Rip and Affleck’s next directorial project, animals.
For Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, three is not a crowd! The Hollywood besties were spotted enjoying dinner in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 31, along with Damon’s wife, Luciana Barroso. In photos obtained by the Daily Mail and People, the trio can be seen hugging outside Steakhouse 48 in Beverly Hills. Affleck, 52 years old, had (…)
“She’s a great producer and a really good friend and yeah, I never got that vibe from her. So I think something I did in real life took that away,” Affleck joked, to which Stern, 72, and Damon laughed. “‘You know, in person, you’re different.'”
“She finally met him and all of that went away,” Damon replied.
Stern noted that it would be “devastating” if Barroso “leaves” him and “runs off with Ben,” which Damon wholeheartedly agreed with. “If my two favorite people just walked out of my life? Yeah, that would be shit.”
Damon and Affleck were the writers and stars of the 1997s Goodwill Huntinga film that earned them Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Robin Williams. Damon met Barroso six years later in Miami while filming his movie stuck to you. The couple, who married in 2005, shares four daughters: Alexia, 25, Isabella, 19, Gia, 17, and Stella, 15.
While speaking with Stern, Affleck confessed that he has “witnessed many beautiful things from both of us along the way” in the couple’s 20-year marriage.
“It’s a really great marriage and friendship and two people who when they’re separate and independent from each other are each other’s partner,” she shared, adding that she may not have been there the day they met, but “I feel like it’s gotten better.”
Damon, for his part, revealed that he did The Rip script supervisor, Steve Gehrkethat she was actually with him when she first introduced herself to Barroso, but forgot that fact “for years” because of his crush on her.
“He couldn’t remember who he was with because all he could remember was her,” she said, which Affleck called a “good husband.”
“I’m like, ‘But also, you got hit, and it’s kind of vague,'” Affleck joked. “But he’s smart enough not to say that.”
Affleck added that he should ask for Barroso’s friend’s number to complete the circle of love, but Damon had bad news. “She’s married, I just thought it was a funny joke, I can’t resist,” the Odyssey star said, to which Affleck replied: “Story of my life.”
Affleck used to be married to Jennifer Garner from 2005 to 2018 and the couple share three children: Violet, 19, Seraphina, 16, and Samuel, 13. He later got back together with his ex-girlfriend. Jennifer Lopez. The couple married in 2022, but eventually called it quits three years later.