Actor Matt Damon, 55, crashed the Monday, Sept. 28, 2026 episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” posing as a heckler in the audience until security escorted him out of the auditorium.
Jimmy Kimmel, 58, was hosting. The show had come east for a week of broadcasts in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Sept. 28 was opening night of the Brooklyn run. The bit extends a mock on-air rivalry the two men have maintained for two decades.
Damon began shouting from the audience a few lines into Kimmel’s monologue. He wore a Boston Red Sox cap.
“Tomorrow the baseball postseason begins with a three-game wildcard series between the bitterest of all rivals, the [New York] Yankees and the [Boston] Red Sox,” Kimmel said in the monologue. He had just noted that the series would start in the Bronx when Damon interrupted.
“Go Sox! Go Sox!” Damon shouted from his audience seat, cheering for his home team.
“You, the loser in the Red Sox cap, what is your name?” Kimmel asked.
“You know my name,” Damon answered.
“I have no idea what your name is and honestly, I don’t care, because it’s time for the ceremonial throwing out of the first Red Sox fan,” Kimmel said. “Security, please remove this ‘Masshole’ from the theater.”
Mother and Sister Stand Up
“Wait a minute, I’m not even trying to get on the show. I’m just here with family,” Damon said.
“Security — wait, what family are you here with?” Kimmel asked.
“I’m here with your mom,” Damon said. “I’m also here with your sister.”
Joan Kimmel, the host’s mother, stood up beside Damon. Jill Kimmel, the host’s sister, rose from the next seat.
“My mother and my sister? Get him out of here right now!” Kimmel said.
Security ushered Damon out, and Joan and Jill Kimmel followed him up the aisle.
“You don’t bring my mother and my sister with you,” Kimmel shouted from the stage as Damon was removed.
“Listen, I’ll tell you what. You can keep me off the show; you can’t keep me out of your mom!” Damon said on his way out.
“You should all probably get tested for HPV,” Kimmel told the crowd after Damon’s exit.
A Bit Born in 2005
The feud bit dates to 2005, when Kimmel began closing episodes with an apology to a guest who had never been booked.
“Apologies to Matt Damon, but we ran out of time,” Kimmel said.
The joke hardened into a tradition. Damon finally turned up as a guest in September 2006, and Kimmel cut him off and ended the show, keeping the feud alive rather than settling it.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” launched in 2003 on ABC. Kimmel has said the early days of the show were “murderously difficult.” He has said most publicists were wary of him early on and that he leaned on a small circle of famous friends to fill the guest chair.
Truce, Then an Oscars Clip
The two men attempted peace in March 2023, in a detente brokered by Ben Affleck, Damon’s closest friend. Damon and Affleck met as kids growing up in Cambridge, Mass.
The truce fell apart on air that same night. While hosting the 2024 Oscars, Kimmel played a clip of Messi, the dog from “Anatomy of a Fall,” urinating on Damon’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the feud was back on.
Kimmel has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards three times, in 2012, 2016 and 2020, and he hosted the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He hosted the 68th Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, a night that “The People v. O.J. Simpson” dominated.
Kimmel said in 2016 that late-night hosts chase the same bookings and little else, describing his rivalries in far milder terms than his on-air persona suggests.
Damon is a father of four.
