Matt Damon has insisted that he has not recently used the derogatory term "f****t" despite appearing to admit in an interview that he did.
In comments that were widely criticised, the 50-year-old had told The Sunday Times that his daughter pulled him up over his use of the word - an offensive term used to refer to gay men - in "a joke".
"The word that my daughter calls the 'f-slur for a homosexual' was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application," he said.
"I made a joke, months ago, and got a treatise from my daughter. She left the table."
Now Damon has issued a statement denying that he had used the word, while seemingly recalling a different account of his conversation with his daughter.
"During a recent interview, I recalled a discussion I had with my daughter where I attempted to contextualise for her the progress that has been made - though by no means completed - since I was growing up in Boston and, as a child, heard the word 'f*g' used on the street before I knew what it even referred to," he said.
"I explained that that word was used constantly and casually and was even a line of dialogue in a movie of mine as recently as 2003; she in turn expressed incredulity that there could ever have been a time where that word was used unthinkingly.
"To my admiration and pride, she was extremely articulate about the extent to which that word would have been painful to someone in the LGBTQ+ community regardless of how culturally normalised it was. I not only agreed with her but thrilled at her passion, values and desire for social justice.
"I have learned that eradicating prejudice requires active movement toward justice rather than finding passive comfort in imagining myself 'one of the good guys.' And given that open hostility against the LGBTQ+ community is still not uncommon, I understand why my statement led many to assume the worst.
"To be as clear as I can be, I stand with the LGBTQ+ community."
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