Minnie Driver reveals why she appeared 'devastated' when ex Matt Damon won Oscar for 'Good Will Hunting'

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Minnie Driver remembers being "devastated" when her ex-partner Matt Damon won an Oscar for their 1998 movie 'Good Will Hunting.'

The 1998 movie starred the 53-year-old actress as Matt's love interest. Matt and his 51-year-old creative partner Ben Affleck won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

The Instagram account Movie Shmood shared a video of Matt and Ben winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, which showed Minnie pensively observing her co-stars while Affleck acknowledged her during their speech.

Minnie Driver opens up on how devastated she was by Matt Damon and her breakup

Resurfaced footage shows Minnie wearing a dejected expression as the two accepted the prize. After one social media user commented on how "sad" Minnie appeared, she opened up online about her sadness over her and Matt's breakup.

Minnie and Matt began dating after appearing in the movie 'Good Will Hunting' as love interests but they broke up after a brief, year-long romance in 1998.

Minnie said in the comment section of the post, "Matt had ended our relationship a few weeks before this, and was at the Oscars with his new gf… I was devastated."

"Wish I could have celebrated more as it was an amazing moment for all of us, and for this wonderful film! (Heart emoji.)," she added.

Matt had moved on by the time the Oscars came around, and he went to the ceremony with a new girlfriend.

Minnie did not reveal the identity of his new partner, but soon after their split, the actor began dating Winona Ryder. Although Ryder did attend the 1998 Oscars, it is uncertain if she was the girlfriend, as per Daily Mail.

Minnie Driver earlier opened up about her romance with Matt Damon

The actress's ascent to stardom was strengthened when she was nominated for an Academy Award for 'Good Will Hunting' in 1997.

While appearing on ITV's 'Sky Breakfast Show' in 2022, Minnie opened up about her time in Hollywood and romance with Matt.

She told host Chris Evans, "Matt Damon was just this lovely, talented, great person who was also very young and got famous very fast. And people don't always behave well in situations when you're under pressure."

"It was a very sweet romance that we had. And I really do look back on it with such fondness no matter how it ended up. It was just sort of dramatic and tabloid-y and was really unbelievable," Minnie continued.

Minnie added, "We really did fancy each other, we really were good friends at that point. And they let us improvise a lot, there was a lot of real, the way in which we spoke to each other."

"At the time, it was weird, walking down the aisle in the supermarket with magazine covers in stereo of him making out with his new girlfriend after we'd broken up," Minnie described when she learned that he was seeing other women through the press.

Minnie also talked about the romance in 2022 on TODAY while promoting her book, 'Managing Expectations.'

Matt Damon revealed the breakup on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show'

The world learned about Minnie and Matt's split after the actor disclosed their breakup on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' that they had called it quits.

The actor said at the time, "Well, I’m single. I was with Minnie for a while, but we’re not really romantically involved anymore, we’re just really good friends. I love her dearly."

In a later interview with the Los Angeles Times, Minnie hit back and said that she thought Matt's decision to go on 'Oprah' was "fantastically inappropriate," adding that it was terrible that Matt used the show as a platform to announce their breakup.

"It’s unfortunate that Matt went on Oprah; it seemed like a good forum for him to announce to the world that we were no longer together, which I found fantastically inappropriate," she stated at the time.

Minnie has been dating American filmmaker and writer Addison O'Dea since 2019. The 53-year-old Matt has been married to Luciana Bozan since 2005.