Matt Damon says he “stands with the LGBTQ+ community” as he responds to backlash over his comments about using a homophobic slur as a joke.
The 50-year-old actor recently revealed his daughter called him out for using the word “f*****” and explained why it is so “dangerous”, and now he has insisted he does not “use slurs of any kind
Now, he said in a lengthy statement to ‘Entertainment Tonight’: “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. 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.
“To be as clear as I can be, I stand with the LGBTQ+ community. Damon also went into detail on the initial conversation with his daughter, and said he was “thrilled at her passion” and “values
He said: “During a recent interview, I recalled a discussion I had with my daughter where I attempted to contextualise 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**’ used on the street before I knew what it even referred to.
“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 [in ‘Stuck On You’].
“She in turn expressed incredulity that there could ever have been a time where that word was used unthinkingly. 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.
Damon – who has daughters Isabella, 15, Gia, 12, and Stella, 10, along with stepdaughter Alexia Barroso, 22, with wife Luciana Barroso- revealed his use of the slur in an interview with The Sunday Times over the weekend.
He said: “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.
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Source: IOL
