Matt Damon's Wife Luciana Was Initially Drawn to 'Cute' Ben Affleck While Watching 'Good Will Hunting'

It turns out Matt Damon had a little unexpected competition — and it came from his longtime best friend.

During a Monday, January 12, appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the actor revealed that his wife of 20 years, Luciana Barroso, was initially more drawn to Ben Affleck after watching Good Will Hunting. Damon and Affleck, who grew up together in Cambridge, Mass., have been friends since childhood, meeting when Damon was 10 and Affleck was just 8.

“This is f------ completely true,” Damon admitted on the show. “After we’d been together for a little while, probably a few months, she admitted that — I think I met her best friend from high school and it came out that the two of them went and saw Good Will Hunting together and her best friend thought I was the cute one, and she thought Ben was the cute one.”

Even years later, Damon still thinks about the confession.

“So she admitted to me… I’m like, ‘You got the wrong one?!’ She told me that 23 years ago,” he recalled.

Damon and Affleck famously wrote and starred in the 1997 hit Good Will Hunting, which earned them an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Damon later met Barroso six years after the film’s release while filming Stuck on You in Miami.

Nowadays, the trio remain closely connected both personally and professionally. Barroso now works as a producer on The Rip and Affleck’s upcoming directorial project, Animals.

“She’s a great producer and a really good friend and yeah, I never got that vibe from her. So I think something I did in real life rubbed it off,” Affleck joked, drawing laughs from Damon and host Howard Stern. “‘You know, in person, you’re different.’”

“Finally she met him and all that went away,” Damon quickly added.

Stern then threw out a playful — yet brutal — hypothetical, suggesting Barroso could have “left” Damon and “ran off with Ben.”

Damon didn’t miss a beat, saying, “If my two favorite people just exited my life? Yeah, that would suck.”

Damon and Barroso, who tied the knot in 2005, share four daughters: Alexia, 25, Isabella, 19, Gia, 17, and Stella, 15.

The actor also shared a forgotten detail about first meeting his wife, revealing that The Rip script supervisor Steve Gehrke was actually with him at the time — something Damon somehow blanked on for years.

“I’m like, ‘But also, you were hammered, and it’s a little vague,’” Affleck teased. “But he’s smart enough not to say that.”

“I couldn’t remember who I was with ’cause all I remembered was her,” Damon said, which Affleck quickly labeled a “good husband” move.

Affleck went on to praise the couple’s relationship, saying he’s witnessed their bond grow over the years.

“It’s a really gorgeous marriage and friendship and two people who when they’re apart and independent of one another are one another’s partner,” he shared. While Affleck admitted he wasn’t there the day they met, he added, “I have a feeling it’s improved.”

Before the conversation wrapped, Affleck joked about tracking down Barroso’s friend to complete the love-square story — but Damon immediately shut it down.

“She’s married, I just thought it was a funny joke — I can’t resist,” the Odyssey star said.

Affleck, who recently finalized his divorce from Jennifer Lopez in January 2025, simply replied, “Story of my life.”