Matt Damon Stumbles Through Defense of Sexual Harassers

Downsizing star Matt Damon waded into the minefield that is the current sexual harassment controversy with predictably explosive results. In a recent interview, the actor said that there's a "spectrum" of sexual abuse, and those men who commit offenses on what he deems to be the inconsequential end of the spectrum should get a break. Not surprisingly, most of Twitter disagreed with him. Loudly.

Via Decider.

Matt Damon isn’t done talking about Harvey Weinstein (or sexual misconduct in general, for that matter.) In a trainwreck of an interview with Peter Travers about Damon’s new film Downsizing, Damon was questioned about his former collaborator Weinstein and the floodgates that have since opened in Hollywood with abuse victims coming forward. Rather than coming back with a relatively prepared answer, Damon began with what seemed to be a smart, thoughtful response and quickly pivoted to sharing his opinions on what he believes to be a “spectrum of behavior” when it comes to sexual misconduct.

“I do believe that there’s a spectrum of behavior, right? And we’re going to have to figure—you know, there’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right? Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?"

"You know, we see somebody like Al Franken, right? I personally would have preferred if they had an Ethics Committee investigation, you know what I mean? It’s like at what point—you know, we’re so energized to kind of get retribution, I think. 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” … Like, when I’m raising my kids, this constant personal responsibility is as important as anything else they learn before they go off in the world.”

Damon didn’t stop there, however. He defended Casey Affleck (“I know the real story if it’s my friend”), implied that if a colleague of his was accused, he’d have to be the judge of guilt (“If it’s a colleague … I don’t know … I guess it depends on the situation and the allegation and how believable I think it is”), and continued on to seemingly defend C.K. for his actions and emphasizing how important it is for us to start differentiating between different “behaviors” on the so-called sexual misconduct “spectrum."

Get the rest of the story at Decider.

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