Did you know Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon have beef? Because they won't let us forget it.
If you were hoping to see Matt Damon slap his long-time frenemy Jimmy Kimmel at the 2023 Oscars, well, the night is still young (nearly three hours into the telecast).
In all seriousness — or with all of the seriousness I can possibly muster for former Man Show host Kimmel — metaphorical shots were fired inside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday. But it was Academy Awards MC Kimmel who had the last laugh when he resurrected his decades-long feud with Damon in front Jessica Chastain (who was sitting a mere 10 feet away from activist Malala Yousafzai as she was being harassed by Cocaine Bear). Kimmel took a few cheap shots at Damon, and Chastain was a good sport about the whole thing.
But where did this whole Kimmel-Damon beef start?
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First, it's important to reiterate that these two are actually really good friends. They just pretend to hate each other...for laughs or something. Here they are at the 2016 Oscars doing the same bit:
As for how it all began, well, Kimmel told NPR back in 2013 that it started with a well-timed joke after a particularly bad taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
We had a bad show. ... The guests were bad, and I was feeling pretty bad about myself at the end of the program. And I decided to say, for the amusement of one of our producers who was standing next to me ... 'I want to apologize to Matt Damon. We ran out of time.' ... And he got a kick out of it, the producer, so I just started doing it every night to amuse him.
Why Matt Damon, you ask? It's simple, really: It was the first name that popped into his head. The rest, as they say, is pop culture history. And now we can officially call it a recurring Oscars bit.
No word on whether Damon will clap back at Kimmel, but the Oscars aren't over and for all we know Damon's been lurking inside that Cocaine Bear suit all night, just waiting for the right moment to strike.
Topics Oscars Celebrities
Crystal Bell is the Culture Editor at Mashable. She oversees the site's coverage of the creator economy, digital spaces, and internet trends, focusing on how young people engage with others and themselves online. She is particularly interested in how social media platforms shape our online and offline identities.
She was formerly the entertainment director at MTV News, where she helped the brand expand its coverage of extremely online fan culture and K-pop across its platforms. You can find her work in Teen Vogue, PAPER, NYLON, ELLE, Glamour, NME, W, The FADER, and elsewhere on the internet.
She's exceptionally fluent in fandom and will gladly make you a K-pop playlist and/or provide anime recommendations upon request. Crystal lives in New York City with her two black cats, Howl and Sophie.
