MATT Damon's ex girlfriend and Good Will Hunting co-star, Minnie Driver, has hit out at comments he made about sexual misconduct in Hollywood.
The Will & Grace actress didn't hold back after Damon gave an interview suggesting there were varying degrees of sexual misconduct and they should not all be viewed the same way.
"I do believe that there's a spectrum of behaviour, right? And we're going to have to figure - you know, there's a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation," he told ABC News. "Both of those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn't be conflated, right?
'The Louis CK thing ... When he came out and said, 'I did this. I did these things. These women are all telling the truth' and I just remember thinking, 'Well, that's the sign of somebody who - well, we can work with that'", he said. "And the fear for me is that right now ... the clearer signal to men and to younger people is, deny it. Because if you take responsibility for what you did, your life's going to get ruined."
Gosh it’s so *interesting how men with all these opinions about women’s differentiation between sexual misconduct, assault and rape reveal themselves to be utterly tone deaf and as a result, systemically part of the problem( *profoundly unsurprising)
— Minnie Driver (@driverminnie) December 15, 2017
No. You don’t get to be hierarchical with abuse. And you don’t get to tell women that because some guy only showed them their penis their pain isnt as great as a woman who was raped.
— Minnie Driver (@driverminnie) December 16, 2017
Social media tore into Damon, with Driver also having her say about her ex's comments.
"Good God, SERIOUSLY?' wrote the furious actress on Twitter, in response to a headline quoting The Martian star's views. "There are so many men I love who do NOT frame the differentiation between sexual misconduct, assault and rape as an excuse or worse - our problem. Such b*****ks."
Former Charmed star Alyssa Milano, who brought the #MeToo campaign to priminance, attempted to school Damon on the matter, saying "it's the micro that makes the macro."
"I have been a victim of each component of the sexual assault spectrum of which you speak. They all hurt. And they are all connected to a patriarchy intertwined with normalised, accepted - even welcomed - misogyny," she tweeted. "We are not outraged because someone grabbed our asses in a picture. We are outraged because we were made to feel this was normal. We are outraged because we have been galighted. We are outraged because we were silenced for so long."
"There are different stages of cancer. Some more treatable than others. But it's still cancer," she said.
Damon has spoken out against Harvey Weinstein, who helped support his big break into Hollywood with Good Will Hunting.
