Matt Damon claims he's never used the f-slur following backlash to his recent comments

3 August 2021, 11:06

Matt Damon previously said that it took his daughter writing a treatise for him to realise that the f-slur is "dangerous".

Matt Damon has released a statement after receiving backlash for saying that he was using the "f-slur" up until months ago.

In an interview with The Sunday Times this month, Matt said: "The word that my daughter calls the ‘f-slur for a homosexual’ was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application. I made a joke, months ago, and got a treatise from my daughter. She left the table." I said, 'Come on, that’s a joke! I say it in the movie Stuck on You!'"

Matt then added: "She went to her room and wrote a very long, beautiful treatise on how that word is dangerous. I said, ‘I retire the f-slur!’ I understood." However, Matt has now put out a statement claiming that he has never used the f-slur.

READ MORE: Matt Damon slammed after revealing he only stopped using the "f-slur" months ago

In the new statement to Variety, Matt said: "During a recent interview, I recalled a discussion I had with my daughter where I attempted to contextualize for her the progress that has been made, though by no means completed, since I was growing up in Boston and, as a child, heard the word ‘f*g’ used on the street before I knew what it even referred to."

He then added: "I explained that that word was used constantly and casually and was even a line of dialogue in a movie of mine as recently as 2003; she, in turn, expressed incredulity that there could ever have been a time where that word was used unthinkingly."

Matt also praised his daughter stating: "To my admiration and pride, she was extremely articulate about the extent to which that word would have been painful to someone in the LGBTQ+ community regardless of how culturally normalized it was. I not only agreed with her but thrilled at her passion, values and desire for social justice."

Matt then went back on his claims that he has just "retired the f-slur" by saying: "I have never called anyone ‘f****t’ in my personal life and this conversation with my daughter was not a personal awakening. I do not use slurs of any kind."

He continued: "I have learned that eradicating prejudice requires active movement toward justice rather than finding passive comfort in imagining myself ‘one of the good guys’. And given that open hostility against the LGBTQ+ community is still not uncommon, I understand why my statement led many to assume the worst."

Matt ended the statement with the words: "To be as clear as I can be, I stand with the LGBTQ+ community.”