Minnie Driver Recalls Past Love Affair With Matt Damon

Minnie Driver reflected on her past romance with Matt Damon.

In her new book, “Managing Expectations: A Memoir in Essays,” Driver talked about their very public relationship and how it fizzled out, just as her family had predicted.

Driver said their relationship was “sweet” but ended before their movie, “Good Will Hunting,” even hit the awards show circuit. “My family loved Matt—it wasn’t that. It was that they could see that this young man was rocketing really fast and so was I, and when you’re young, it’s pretty hard to keep your head on straight and to maintain a grounded sense of deportment,” she explained.

The “Cinderella” actress also recalled how her family knew of their impending breakup, saying, “They were like, ‘This may well end badly for reasons that are to do with all these things coming together in a perfect storm.’”

She said it wasn’t long before they actually went their separate ways and their breakup became the talk of the town.

Driver recalled how “weird” she felt seeing their breakup play out publicly in the tabloids each time she entered their local grocery store after their split. “I don’t care who you are, that is agony and it’s like a strange, surreal dream. But I know he didn’t put that picture there. It’s so tricky, because it’s not deliberate, he couldn’t have helped how famous he became and how his life was being picked over, in the same way that mine was,” she said.

Despite their messy breakup, Driver said she’s able to tell their love story with love because after all, it was just “a sweet love affair” that had “a combustible ending.” She also revealed how her parents helped her move on from the breakup without being resentful.

“Another thing that my parents taught me, was there just isn’t any time to sit around feeling resentful or angry. Just have to get on and everybody had a beautiful life,” she told the outlet.

Driver and Damon starred together in “Good Will Hunting” in 1997 and dated briefly afterward. They broke up in 1998 after Damon said on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” that he did not have a girlfriend.