He obviously wants to clear his name!
Matt Damon denies killing a 2004 story about Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct, amid outrage from actresses like Rose McGowan and Jessica Chastain and the public at large.
Former
New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman claimed in a report published by
The Wrap that she was investigating sexual harassment claims against the movie producer for a piece, when she got calls from
The Martian star and Russell Crowe in a bid to squash the expose. Consequently, the story was never published.
Damon claims that Weinstein urged him to pick up the phone, by telling him that the outlet was writing a negative article on his
Miramax exec partner Fabrizio Lombardo, and he should simply offer up his own experience working with them.
"My recollection was that it was about a one minute phone call. Harvey had called me and said, 'They're writing a story about Fabrizio ... and it's really negative. Can you just call and tell her what your experience with Fabrizio was?' So I did, and that's what I said to her. It didn't even make the piece that she wrote. As I recall, her piece just said that Russell and I had called and relayed our experience with Fabrizio. That was the extent of it and so I was very surprised to see it come back. I was never conscripted to do anything," Damon told
Deadline in a statement today.
Rose McGowan, for one, thinks Damon is in bed with the devil. "Hey @mattdamon what's it like to be a spineless profiteer who stays silent?" she tweeted on Monday.
"Look, even before I was famous, I didn't abide this kind of behavior. But now, as the father of four daughters, this is the kind of sexual predation that keeps me up at night. This is the great fear for all of us. ... We know this stuff goes on in the world. I did five or six movies with Harvey. I never saw this. I think a lot of actors have come out and said, everybody's saying we all knew. That's not true," he said in response to the
Scream star's accusations.
"This type of predation happens behind closed doors and out of public view. If there was ever an event that I was at and Harvey was doing this kind of thing and I didn't see it, then I am so deeply sorry, because I would have stopped it. And I will peel my eyes back now, father than I ever have, to look for this type of behavior. Because we know that it happens. I feel horrible for these women and it's wonderful they have this incredible courage and are standing up now. For the record, I would never, ever, ever try to kill a story like that. I just wouldn't do that. It's not something I would do, for anybody," he concluded.
This whole scandal is turning into quite the witch hunt!