In an interview for ABC News’ “Popcorn With Peter Travers,” Matt Damon opened up about Harvey Weinstein, sexual harassment and confidentiality agreements.
Damon was vocal about his take on the matters under discussion and since the interview was released on Tuesday (the full interview goes live on 27 December), his comments have been met with controversy.
The actor initially spoke about how he doesn’t consider all crimes to be equal. “I do believe that there’s a spectrum of behavior,” he begins. “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, right? Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?”
He continued: “And we live in this culture of outrage and injury, and, you know, that we’re going to have to correct enough to kind of go, “Wait a minute. None of us came here perfect.” You know what I mean?” He cited Louis C.K. as someone who came forward and made him think “Well, that’s the sign of somebody who — well, we can work with that.”
He goes on to explain: “All of that behavior needs to be confronted, but there is a continuum. And on this end of the continuum where you have rape and child molestation or whatever, you know, that’s prison. Right? And that’s what needs to happen. Okay? And then we can talk about rehabilitation and everything else. That’s criminal behavior, and it needs to be dealt with that way. The other stuff is just kind of shameful and gross.”
Upon being questioned what if a friend of his had allegations brought against him, he said he’d know “the real story” and that if it was a colleague, “I don’t know … I guess it depends on the situation and the allegation and how believable I think it is.”
You can watch and read the extended interview on ABC News.
