Minnie Driver reflects on her ‘heartbreak’ after Matt Damon split

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Minnie Driver is opening up on her heartbreak following her split with her old boyfriend Matt Damon over 25 years ago.

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Speaking during an appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show this week, Driver, 54, opened up about the emotional period following the couple’s breakup in 1998.

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Hudson said their relationship “made a lot of headlines,” and pointed to a viral photo that was shared by the Movie Shmood Instagram account last fall that showed Damon and Ben Affleck celebrating their win for best original screenplay.

One fan noted that “Minnie looks so sad,” in a comment captured and shared by the Comments By Celebs page.

“Matt had ended our relationship a few weeks before this, and was at the Oscars with his new (girlfriend)… I was devastated,” Driver wrote back at the time. “Wish I could have celebrated more as it was an amazing moment for all of us, and for this wonderful film!”

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“It made a lot of headlines when you commented on a clip of Matt Damon winning the Oscar that night. Did you expect to get that response?” Hudson asked.

“First of all, I want to wrap my arms around that young woman,” Driver replied. “He had a new girlfriend (Winona Ryder) and I was totally heartbroken … so when I commented, I don’t know that I had ever seen that clip … my face and reaction when they won … It was so raw and vulnerable that I commented, ‘Gosh, I wish I could have celebrated more.’”

Driver then shared what she would have told her young 25-year-old self in that moment.

“I wish I could have told her, ‘Honey it’s cool, you can celebrate and life’s gonna be great and beautiful and hard and amazing,’” Driver said. “‘You’re going to love again, it’ll be fine.’”

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Driver has previously opened up about her split with Damon, telling Entertainment Tonight last year that she learned of their breakup when the actor told Oprah Winfrey he was single.

“I was with Minnie for a while, but we’re not really romantically involved anymore, we’re just really good friends. I love her dearly,” he told Winfrey at the time.

“I care about her a lot. We care about each other a lot. It wasn’t meant to be and if it wasn’t meant to be then it’s not meant to be.”

“I don’t care who you are, that is agony and it’s like a strange, surreal dream,” Driver said of having her heart broken in such a public way. “It’s funny now, when I think about walking down the magazine aisle in my local supermarket at midnight with my best friend, we were like, ‘Are you seeing this? This is super weird.’ My friend, Alexandra was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening, like, I feel like we’re in a movie. I would totally watch this movie, even though I know you’re super heartbroken, but this is really weird.’”

But both of them moved on to have happy lives.

Driver, who has one son from a previous relationship, has been dating filmmaker Addison O’Dea since September 2019.

Meanwhile, Damon has been married to Luciana Barroso since 2005 and the couple share three daughters: Isabella, 17, Gia, 15, and Stella, 13.

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