Matt Damon revealed that his wife of more than 20 years, Luciana “Lucy” Barroso, suffered a brain aneurysm.
The revelation came during an interview with GQ, when “The Odyssey” star opened up about a time he felt a tinge of FOMO watching the Oscars from bed with his wife and then-newborn baby.
It was the 79th Academy Awards in 2007 and Martin Scorsese was nominated for best director for “The Departed,” which was also up for best picture. Damon portrays a corrupt police officer in the film.
“Lucy and I were laying in bed watching it and so nervous for Marty,” he told the magazine. “And then when he won, I was jumping up and down in the bedroom and I remember being really excited. And then the next category was best picture, and The Departed won. And I realized in that moment I hadn’t even considered that that could happen. And I turned to Lucy and I was like, ‘S—, we should be there!’ … I totally blew it.”
After the experience, Damon said his wife wouldn’t let him miss out again, even in the wake of serious medical trauma.
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In 2024, “Oppenheimer” was up for best picture. In the movie, Damon plays Col. Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. The film won the award, and this time, Barroso had a surprise in store, an Oscar-worthy dress ready to go for the big night even though she’d just had surgery after suffering a brain aneurysm.
“She’s totally fine, thank God,” he said. “But [she] had this brain surgery the week before the Oscars. 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 after-party, because she remembered that the last time it happened, I didn’t do it. And she was like, ‘This time we’re going out.’ And it was pretty f— heroic of her to do that and really meaningful.”
The Argentine-born Barroso and Damon tied the knot back in 2005. They had met two years earlier, and during a 2011 appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” Damon said that meeting his wife was a complete stroke of luck.
He was filming “Stuck on You” in 2002, with the Farrelly brothers at the helm. “We were supposed to shoot in Hawaii, and then the movie got moved to Miami . . . and I’d never really hung out in Miami,” he told DeGeneres, adding that in the middle of the shoot a couple of the guys from the crew invited him to grab a beer at a local watering hole. “They kind of dragged me along, and we ended up at a bar where my wife was the bartender, and I literally saw her across a crowded room, literally.
“And eight years and four kids later, that’s that’s my life,” he joked. “I don’t know how else our paths would have crossed if that didn’t happen.”
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