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GLAAD Responds to Matt Damon's 'f-slur' Comments

Matt Damon

Read GLAAD's response here.

LGBTQ media organization GLAAD has responded to Matt Damon's recent controversial comments.


This controversy stems from a recent interview the Academy Award-winning actor gave to The Sunday Times while promoting his new film Stillwater. During the interview, Damon discussed the changing landscape of masculinity, and while sharing an anecdote, 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."

Since receiving backlash for these comments, Damon has clarified his remarks and affirmed his alliance to the LGBTQ community, and in a statement to Variety, said:

"During a recent interview, I recalled a discussion I had with my daughter where I attempted to contextualize 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*g' 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; 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," the actor said.

(Read his full response here.)

Amidst this controversy, GLAAD's Head of Talent Anthony Allen Ramos has responded in a statement saying:

"The conversations that have arisen after Matt Damon's original interview and subsequent remarks today are an important reminder that this word, or any word that aims to disparage and disrespect LGBTQ people, has no place in mainstream media, social media, classrooms, workplaces, and beyond," said Anthony Allen Ramos, GLAAD's Head of Talent. "There needs to be accountability at a time when anti-LGBTQ slurs remain rampant today and can fuel discrimination and stereotypes, especially when used by those outside of the community to defame or describe LGBTQ people."

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