It Took a ‘Treatise’ to Get Matt Damon to Stop Saying the F-Word

The actor admitted he only stopped using “the f-slur for a homosexual” a few months ago, at his daughter's request

By Marie Solis  |  August 1, 2021 | 10:48pm
CelebritiesDirt Bag
It Took a ‘Treatise’ to Get Matt Damon to Stop Saying the F-Word
Photo:Kate Green (Getty Images)

In what I suppose can only be described as an inadvertent self-cancellation Matt Damon freely admitted in an interview that he only recently—as in “some months ago”—stopped using the f-word.

According to Vulture, the actor seemed to bring up the subject apropos of nothing. The Sunday Times writer interviewing Damon observed that the unprompted anecdote was “exactly the sort … people make headlines about,” suggesting that Damon might have been trying to rustle up some more press for himself (and for his new film Stillwater).

This remark—along with the nature of the admission itself—tells me that Damon likely still doesn’t grasp just how reprehensible it is to use what he calls “the f-slur for a homosexual.” Not to mention that it took Damon something in the order of a “treatise” from his daughter to convince him to stop saying it:

“[The slur] 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!’ 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.”

Perhaps still not well enough.

A natural question also arises: What else could Damon stand to learn from his daughter? I shudder at the thought.

Proof that Paul Rudd doesn’t age, exhibit A: