Matt Damon stopped using “the f-slur” after his daughter told him how “dangerous” it is.
Matt Damon
The 50-year-old actor has claimed he was unaware of how offensive and damaging the term is toward gay men, and thought it had a “different application” until one of his daughters wrote him a “very long, beautiful treatise” about the history behind the slur.
He told The Sunday Times newspaper: “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!’ 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.”
Matt has daughters Isabella, 15, Gia, 12, and Stella, 10, with his wife Luciana Barroso, and is also stepfather to Luciana’s 22-year-old daughter Alexia.
And while the ‘Martian’ star didn’t name which daughter got him to give up the offensive term, he recently revealed his teenage daughter has refused to watch any of his movies in case they’re “good”.
Asked if fans still associate him with his breakout movie 'Good Will Hunting', he said: "Sure, yeah - fewer and fewer.
"You know, younger people don't know it as much. You know, my 15 year old refuses to see it. She doesn't want to see any movies that I'm in that she thinks might be good."
But Matt insisted his daughters are proud of his career and very supportive.
He said: "I like that they know that they love my job. They know it's time-consuming and that it's a lot of work and that it fills me up."
And the ‘Stillwater’ star admitted being a parent has made acting easier because he's been so much more emotional since having children and he "gets choked up easier".
He said: "Ever since I had kids, my job has become a lot easier, because I don't have to try. I don't have to reach for any emotions, whether it's joy or whether it's pain, because it's all just nearby because the stakes are so much higher when you have kids."
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