Don’t expect Jimmy Kimmel to give Matt Damon a warm welcome at the Oscars on Sunday, February 26. The late-night host joked about his decade-long “feud” with the actor during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday, February 23. Watch the video above.
“We don’t like each other in case you don’t know the backstory,” Kimmel, 49, said. Last week, Damon, 46, told DeGeneres, 59, that Kimmel will do a bad job hosting the Academy Awards. “I mean, it’s terrible for everybody. Sorry, I’m just being honest,” he said at the time. “I have extremely low expectations for his performance on Oscar night.”
Damon, who produced the Oscar-nominated drama Manchester by the Sea, added: “I’m going to be there a few rows deep hoping that he messes up.”
Kimmel clapped back during his own chat with DeGeneres. “He’s going to be more than a few rows deep. That’s tough talk coming from a guy that wears 11 bracelets, I think,” he joked on Thursday. “One thing I know he won’t be throwing at me is an Oscar because he’s not going to win.”
Kimmel and Damon’s faux feud began in December 2005. “We had a bad [Jimmy Kimmel Live!] show. … The guests were bad, and I was feeling pretty bad about myself at the end of the program,” Kimmel explained to 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.”
Kimmel ended each show with the hilarious phrase for the year that followed. In 2006, Damon finally got in on the gag when he showed up on JKL to confront him.
“Matt Damon was just the first name that popped into my head. I was trying to think of an A-list star, and somebody we absolutely would not bump if he was on the show,” Kimmel added to NPR. “The legs on this bit are unbelievable to me. I mean, people laugh every time I say it. … Repeating the same joke every single night, you’d think eventually people would get tired of it, but they don’t.”
The “feud” has no end in sight. In fact, some of Kimmel’s best skits involve the Martian star. They’ve gone to couples counseling and have even involved their famous pals. In 2008, Kimmel’s then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman released a video with Damon titled “F–king Matt Damon.” Kimmel retaliated by posting one with Damon’s BFF called “F–king Ben Affleck” in 2009.
Things have escalated from there. Damon went on to tie Kimmel to his chair with masking tape so he could take over his nightly show in 2013. Last year, Affleck, 44, got involved once more when he snuck Damon into JKL during one of his appearances.
Also, Damon interrupted Kimmel while he was hosting the 2016 Emmys. “Oh, hey, Jimmy, tell your mom I like dem apples,” the Good Will Hunting actor said on stage.
As for the most recent highlight? Earlier this month, Damon claimed that he was the father of Kimmel’s baby. The men and Kimmel’s pregnant wife, Molly McNearney, took paternity tests on the Maury show to prove who’s the daddy.
