If you were hoping to see Matt Damon slap his long-time frenemy Jimmy Kimmel at the 2023 Oscars, well, the night is still young (nearly three hours into the telecast).
In all seriousness — or with all of the seriousness I can possibly muster for former Man Show host Kimmel — metaphorical shots were fired inside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday. But it was Academy Awards MC Kimmel who had the last laugh when he resurrected his decades-long feud with Damon in front Jessica Chastain (who was sitting a mere 10 feet away from activist Malala Yousafzai as she was being harassed by Cocaine Bear). Kimmel took a few cheap shots at Damon, and Chastain was a good sport about the whole thing.
But where did this whole Kimmel-Damon beef start?
First, it’s important to reiterate that these two are actually really good friends. They just pretend to hate each other…for laughs or something. Here they are at the 2016 Oscars doing the same bit:
The (sexual) tension is palpable.
Credit: Getty Images
As for how it all began, well, Kimmel told NPR(Opens in a new tab) back in 2013 that it started with a well-timed joke after a particularly bad taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
We had a bad show. … The guests were bad, and I was feeling pretty bad about myself at the end of the program. And I decided to say, for the amusement of one of our producers who was standing next to me … ‘I want to apologize to Matt Damon. We ran out of time.’ … And he got a kick out of it, the producer, so I just started doing it every night to amuse him.
Why Matt Damon, you ask? It’s simple, really: It was the first name that popped into his head. The rest, as they say, is pop culture history. And now we can officially call it a recurring Oscars bit.
No word on whether Damon will clap back at Kimmel, but the Oscars aren’t over and for all we know Damon’s been lurking inside that Cocaine Bear suit all night, just waiting for the right moment to strike.
