A number of men in Hollywood have struggled with how to address the current culture of #MeToo and Time’s Up. There was that time when none of the male winners at the Golden Globes brought up the subject. And then there was Matt Damon‘s press tour for “Downsizing”, where the actor found himself in the headlines day after day but not for the reasons he was probably hoping for. Instead, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the downfall of other prominent men, the actor found himself with his foot in his mouth on the regular. He often started out supportive and then veered into problematic territory with comments like:

And we live in this culture of outrage and injury, and, you know, that
we’re going to have to correct enough to kind of go, ‘Wait a minute.
None of us came here perfect.’ You know what I mean?… The Louis C.K.
thing, I don’t know all the details. I don’t do deep dives on this,but
I did see his statement, which kind of, which [was] arresting to me.
When he came out and said, “I did this. I did these things. These
women are all telling the truth.” And I just remember thinking, ‘Well,
that’s the sign of somebody who—well, we can work with that’…”

That was…not a great look. Even his ex-girlfriend, Minnie Driver, called him out saying, “I honestly think that until we get on the same page, you can’t tell a woman about their abuse. A man cannot do that. No one can. It is so individual and so personal, it’s galling when a powerful man steps up and starts dictating the terms, whether he intends it or not.” Alyssa Milano also had words for Damon.

This morning, Damon appeared on Today to promote his charity Water.org (a very worthy organization that is all about supplying safe drinking water to those without access to it) when co-host Kathie Lee Gifford asked him about his recent comments. It seems that Damon has finally taken the public (and likely a fair amount of private) criticism to heart and seen the error of his ways in speaking before listening. He apologized for his previous statements saying, “I really wish I’d listened a lot more before I weighed in on this.” He went on to voice support for 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.”

We think that’s probably best—but we’re very glad to see it acknowledged.

Watch Damon’s full interview below:

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