“I was there for all of it,” the Jason Bourne franchise star said.

How Matt Damon helped Ben Affleck through troubling divorces, alcohol addiction

"I was there for all of it," the Jason Bourne franchise star said.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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January 13, 2026 8:00 a.m. ET

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Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on 'The Howard Stern Show' on Jan. 12. Credit:

Cindy Ord/Getty

Seasons change, fame and money may come and go, but the friendship between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon will last a lifetime.

In an interview aired Monday on *The Howard Stern Show*, the famous friends opened up about their bond, which has weathered several storms of bad fortune, especially where Affleck is concerned.

Stern asked Damon if, after all these years, he can still "go to Ben and say, 'I'm here to help you?'" Damon answered, "Oh, yeah, our relationship isn't affected by what people are saying. I was there for all of it."

Touched, Affleck turned to his *Good Will Hunting *costar and said, "That means a lot to me." To Stern, he explained, "That's sort of what a real friend is."

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck with the Best Screenplay Oscars for 'Good Will Hunting' in 1998.

HECTOR MATA/AFP via Getty

Affleck has had a turbulent decade, between a high-profile and protracted divorce from Jennifer Garner, to admitting himself to treatment for alcohol addiction, to a return to the days of Bennifer (Affleck married ex-fianceé Jennifer Lopez in 2022, but they separated again in 2025).

The *Pearl Harbor *star reflected that he and Damon "got into a good place pretty early on," which goes a long way in explaining "why we're as sane as we are — to what degree, you may be the judge! But getting famous and successful kind of together, [we had] somebody to turn to and go, 'Is this f---ing nuts, or what?' Or to say, 'What are you doing, man?'"**

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Damon and Affleck were introduced by their mothers, teachers who knew each other professionally, when they were 10 and 8 years old, respectively.

"He was nice to me," Affleck reflected on a 2023 episode of *Smartless*. "We were just kids who grew up two blocks apart, and both wanted to be actors — for whatever reason it is that makes you want to do that thing — and hung out. And then we're in the same friend group, and then sort of went off and [were] just dumb enough to think, 'It'll pan out!'"

Damon told Stern that after their ascent to prominence with the 1997 Oscar-winning *Good Will Hunting*, which they wrote and starred in, "Your evolution gets kind of stunted at the moment you become famous because the world treats you differently... I think we were lucky in that we were 25 and 27, so we had a handful of years under our belt where we would walk into a room and not turn any heads."

They both expressed gratitude for the friendship at critical stages of confusion and chaos in their lives.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in 'Good Will Hunting'.

"Especially as a young guy, the really intense love relationships you have with other young men who you’re really loyal to and really close to and who you grew up with, and a lot of times those relationships are lifelong," Affleck shared. "I think as young men at least, [we] understood better how important these pure friendships were, and what they meant to us and how they kind of define your identity as early as high school."

Now past 50 and starring in a new film together, the crime thriller *The Rip*, Damon enthused, "We hit the lottery. We hit it together."

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