Tragic Details About Matt Damon's Life You Never Knew

Over the past few decades, Matt Damon has established himself as one of Hollywood's most bankable leading men. With starring roles in hits like "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "The Martian," and the "Jason Bourne" franchise, Damon has proved that he has what it takes to be up there with the great legends of cinema. Though it may seem like he has it all, Damon's journey to the top wasn't paved with gold, and he continues to face his struggles to this day. Sometimes, fame is trickier to handle than the bright lights and glamour would have you believe. 

Damon's red carpet smiles hide the scars of several tragedies he's had to face throughout his life in the public eye. From a very public breakup to losing a friend unexpectedly, as well as dealing with several headline-making indiscretions, this is one actor who knows that getting what you want in Hollywood often comes at a cost that can impact your future moving forward, begging the question: Are the paychecks really worth it? 

It can be easy to forget that at their core, famous people are still just that — people. As we take a look back at some of the hardest challenges Damon has overcome, take a minute to appreciate the man behind the mask. After all, the best actors are the ones who can convince you everything is just fine when only the opposite is true.

There are some stars out there who became famous almost overnight. Take the stunning transformation of Josh Hartnett, for example. However, for Matt Damon, it wasn't quite so easy. In his early days of striving for stardom, Damon was so broke that even finding anywhere to live was a serious struggle. At one point, he explained during an appearance at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival (via The Sun), Ben Affleck was crashing on a couch in his tiny Los Angeles apartment after a failed engagement. When it was time to find a new place, their financial position was a little dubious, to say the least. 

"We were so broke, we had no credit score, we had nothing. So people were like, 'We can't rent to you,'" Damon explained. Interestingly, what the dynamic duo did have was a copy of Variety that contained an article announcing the sale of their screenplay for "Good Will Hunting." They showed it proudly to potential landlords as a way of saying they were good for the rent. Eventually, one landlord believed them. They managed to land an apartment, but it was no easy task. 

It's hard to imagine multimillionaire Damon in that position now, but at one point, it seemed to Damon that the hard times would never end. He was 27 when his big break finally came.

Even if you work hard to achieve fame, it's not uncommon for stars to struggle with the drastic life changes that come along with it. As we previously mentioned, Matt Damon was 27 years old when his career started to take off after he won an Oscar for "Good Will Hunting." Though Damon didn't go through it alone thanks to his pal Ben Affleck, he has admitted that the transition to becoming a global star wasn't an easy one. In 2023, he told People that when he started getting recognition, he struggled with it initially. 

"I think the shock of becoming famous is so ... I mean, that messed me up for a couple [of] years," he explained, going on to say that the whole world treats you differently when you achieve that level of fame. "It's like, 'Oh, my whole experience has been altered in this really overwhelming way.'" In the same interview, Damon praised Affleck for being the one he could check in with since their journey started and also shared that having the same shared experience was a great source of comfort. 

Even so, Damon might be the first to admit that this is a case of "be careful what you wish for." Multiple stars will tell you just how tricky a beast fame can be!

Ben Affleck has been influencing Matt Damon's acting far longer than we knew, but he hasn't always been there to stop his bestie from making poor financial decisions. At the end of the day, actors may have some idea of which projects will be successful, but no one really knows for sure. One of Damon's biggest mistakes was choosing not to take the lead role in James Cameron's fantasy adventure movie "Avatar." As cinemagoers may remember, it went to Australian actor Sam Worthington instead. 

While Worthington did a great job as paraplegic marine Jake Sully, Cameron was desperate to get Damon on board with the project — so much so that he offered him 10% of the movie's box office takings, according to Damon, who spoke at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival (via The Sun.)  "I was offered a little movie called Avatar," explained the A-lister. "I will go down in history. You will never meet an actor who turned down more money than me."

Damon also brought it up in a 2023 interview with Entertainment Tonight, in which he admitted, "It's the dumbest thing an actor ever did in the history of acting. ... I've probably done, like, 50 movies. I've never been in a movie that made $1 billion." Damon may have a complex relationship with fame, but it seems like this is one blockbuster he regrets not doing. 

The stunning transformation of Matt Damon has seen him go from a young Hollywood upstart to a bona fide leading man. That said, even Damon isn't blessed with the Midas touch, and throughout the late 2010s, it looked like he couldn't catch a break. Movies like "Downsizing," "Suburbicon," and "The Great Wall" were all critical flops, and Damon didn't always feel great while shooting them, either. 

Though the actor didn't pinpoint a specific movie, he revealed in an interview with YouTube show "Jake's Takes" that he began to struggle at one point. "Without naming any particular movies, sometimes you find yourself in a movie that you know, perhaps, might not be what you had hoped it would be, and you're still making it," Damon explained. "And I remember halfway through production and you've still got months to go and you've taken your family somewhere, you know, and you've inconvenienced them, and I remember my wife pulling me up because I fell into a depression about, like, 'What have I done?'"

Damon admitted that it was a tricky experience, but he managed to pull himself up by his bootstraps and give the project's grueling 15-hour days his best shot despite not having much faith in the final product itself — largely thanks to his wife, Luciana Barroso. 

For most of his career (public breakup with Minnie Driver notwithstanding) Matt Damon managed to keep himself out of trouble, gaining the rare reputation of unproblematic Hollywood icon. That was, until he landed himself in hot water in 2021 by admitting that he casually used a homophobic slur — and didn't stop until his daughter told him to. During an interview with The Sunday Times, the actor admitted that he used the homophobic F-word in a joke, but his daughter had to point out that it wasn't acceptable. "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," he explained. 

Though it could be argued that Damon was talking about it publicly to call himself out and educate others, the entire debacle didn't go down well. The backlash was so loud that Damon released a statement clarifying that the word wasn't part of his everyday vocabulary. "I have never called anyone 'f*****' in my personal life, and this conversation with my daughter was not a personal awakening. I do not use slurs of any kind," he said in a statement to Variety.

Despite seemingly clearing up the confusion, other public figures like comedian Billy Eichner quickly called the actor out. Eichner posted on X (previously Twitter): "I want to know what word Matt Damon has replaced f***** with."