Matt Damon has opened up about a health scare involving his wife, Luciana Damon.
The Oscar winner revealed in a new interview with GQ, published on Thursday, that his wife underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm just one week before the 2024 Academy Awards.
“We had this whole scary thing happen where my wife had a brain aneurysm,” Matt Damon, 56, told the magazine. “She’s totally fine, thank God, but [she] had this brain surgery the week before the Oscars.”
“It was the first night she felt good enough to get up and had her energy back,” he said.
A brain aneurysm occurs when a weakened area in the wall of an artery in the brain bulges outward and fills with blood, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Some brain aneurysms cause no symptoms, while others can rupture and cause bleeding in or around the brain, potentially leading to a stroke, brain damage or death, according to the agency.
Matt Damon did not disclose whether his wife’s aneurysm ruptured or provide additional details about her surgery.
Despite undergoing surgery just days earlier, Luciana Damon surprised Matt Damon by getting dressed up and joining him at an Oscars after-party, where his film Oppenheimer was being celebrated after winning seven awards, including best picture.
“And she surprised me and got a dress and we went out to the after-party, because she remembered that the last time it happened, I didn’t do it,” Matt Damon recalled. “And she was like, ‘This time we’re going out.'”
The actor was referring to the 2007 Oscars, when he and Luciana Damon watched from home as his film The Departed won four awards, including best picture and best director for Martin Scorsese.
“I remember I was shooting second unit for The Bourne Ultimatum during that Oscars [where The Departed won], so I didn’t go,” Matt Damon recalled. “I was living in Miami at the time, and I had an infant.”
Matt Damon said he was so excited when Scorsese won that he began jumping up and down in his bedroom, only to realize moments later that he had missed an opportunity to celebrate in person.
“And I turned to Lucy and I was like, ‘S***, we should be there!'” he recalled. “I totally blew it.”
Reflecting on his wife’s determination to celebrate with him nearly two decades later, Matt Damon said, “And it was pretty f****** heroic of her to do that and really meaningful.”
