Oscar Host Jimmy Kimmel: I Hope Matt Damon Loses

The feud between “Jimmy Kimmel Live” host and the award-winning actor has no end in sight: “Maybe when we’re both dead”

Matt Damon Jimmy Kimmel Feud
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Jimmy Kimmel’s long-standing feud with Matt Damon has no end in sight — and the host just hopes that the actor will not score a win at this year’s Oscars.

When asked whether Kimmel is happy he got the Oscars hosting gig over his nemesis, he responded, “Well, he claims he didn’t have time … It’s just another in a series of bad decisions he’s made. I think we are all hoping he doesn’t get nominated. And if he does get nominated — God forbid — I think we are all hoping he doesn’t win!”

Damon was nominated for Best Actor for “The Martian” in 2016, but he’s not running in the actor race this year. Instead, he served as a producer on Best Picture contender, “Manchester by the Sea.”

“There are a lot of good movies — I don’t think it’s my place to say what movie I hope. I just hope Matt Damon loses — that’s my No. 1 thing,” Kimmel continued. “There are a lot of deserving winners, but there is only one deserving loser.”

Kimmel’s feud with Damon stretches back to 2005, when Kimmel ended an episode by apologizing to Damon for bumping him off the show.

“The guests were bad, and I was feeling pretty bad about myself at the end of the program,” Kimmel told NPR in 2013. “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.”

He then repeated the same joke every night, which prompted Damon to appear on the show and film hilarious segments of the duo going to couples counseling. This has been going on for 11 years.

And Kimmel now said the feud is only going to end “when one of us is dead, perhaps. Maybe when we’re both dead.”

Kimmel added that he would never, EVER host the Oscars with Damon. “Why would I associate with someone like that?” he said.

Some had speculated Damon might be lured to host the show with his longtime pal Ben Affleck, given that Affleck’s producing partner, Jennifer Todd, is running the Oscar telecast this year with Mike De Luca.

See TheWrap’s complete interview with Kimmel here.

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