He had to see about a girl...
But in this case, it unfortunately wasn't Minnie Driver. The Good Will Hunting alum recently reflected on attending the 1998 Oscars ceremony in which Ben Affleck and her recent ex Matt Damon won the award for Best Screenplay—and how Matt had shown up with a new girlfriend.
"My face," she commented alongside laughing emojis on an Instagram post showing the pair's speech from the ceremony, during which the camera pans to a forlorn looking Minnie. "Matt had ended our relationship a few weeks before this, and was at the Oscars with his new gf... I was devastated."
The 53-year-old, who was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the time, continued, "Wish I could have celebrated more as it was an amazing moment for all of us, and for this wonderful film!"
Minnie and Matt dated back in the late ‘90s after their love translated from onscreen in the 1997 film to real life. But as quickly as the two became rising stars thanks to the award-winning movie, just so did their romance quickly burn out—and on a newly-public stage.
At the time, Matt revealed his and Minnie's breakup during an appearance on Oprah in 1998, with Minnie alleging this is when she also learned they'd broken up (though Matt has refuted her claim.)
"Well, I'm single," the Jason Bourne alum said during the January episode. "I was with Minnie for a while, but we're not really romantically involved anymore. We're just really good friends, and I love her dearly….I care about her a lot. We care about each other a lot. It wasn't meant to be, you know? And if it's not meant to be, then it's not meant to be."
For her part, Minnie told the Los Angeles Times only months later, "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. Of course, he was busy declaring his love for me on David Letterman a month previously."
The two—who each have moved on with different partners in the subsequent decades—have since decided to let bygones be bygones. In fact, Minnie spoke fondly about her time with the Oppenheimer actor just last year.
"I tell that story with love," she told Entertainment Tonight in May 2022, "because that was just a sweet romance in the center of all of that stuff, but had a combustible ending, which then became the focus. Another thing that my parents taught me was there just isn't any time to sit around feeling resentful or angry, just have to get on. And everybody had a beautiful life."
And for more celeb couples you may have forgotten ever dated, keep reading.