Matt Damon revealed wife Luciana Barroso had a health scare in 2024.
In his new GQ cover story, Damon, 56, recalled missing the 2007 Oscars and shared that he was looking forward to celebrating again with Oppenheimer in 2024. That is, until Barroso, 50, underwent surgery just before the awards show, which the couple had to skip.
“We had this whole scary thing happen where my wife had a brain aneurysm,” Damon said in the interview published on Thursday, November 5. “She’s totally fine, thank God, but [she] had this brain surgery the week before the Oscars.”
Despite the surgery, Barroso surprised Damon with a sweet gesture, and the pair ultimately stepped out to attend an afterparty.
“But it was the first night she felt good enough to get up and had her energy back. And she surprised me and got a dress and we went out to the afterparty, because she remembered that the last time it happened, I didn’t do it,” he recalled. “And she was like, ‘This time we’re going out.’ And it was pretty f***ing heroic of her to do that and really meaningful.”
Damon did not receive a nod for his role as Leslie Groves in Oppenheimer at the 2024 ceremony, but the film got 13 nominations and took home Best Picture that year. Before the awards show, host Jimmy Kimmel joked that Damon was skipping the Oscars because he wasn’t nominated for Oppenheimer.
“What really happened? He couldn’t get a ticket,” Kimmel, 58, quipped to CNN at the time of Damon’s absence. “It’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. He asked if he could come and they told him, ‘Sorry – nominees only.’”
Damon has been married to Barroso since 2005. The pair met two years prior when Barroso was a single mother to daughter Alexia and working at a bar in Miami. The Odyssey star and Barroso later added three more daughters — Isabella, Gia and Stella — to their family.
“I just know I think we both feel really, really lucky to have met each other so we don’t take that for granted,” Barroso told Vogue in 2018 of the pair’s relationship. “It’s life and marriage, so there’s ups and downs you know, but overall, it’s easy and it’s fun. And he’s such a good dad.”
