Matt Damon Gives Update on Best Friend Ben Affleck Following Recent Relapse: ‘He’s Doing Great’

Ben Affleck suffered a relapse in his battle with alcohol addiction in late October, but the actor isn’t letting it affect him. Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Affleck’s best friend Matt Damon offered an update on the Justice League star, telling the outlet that the two have been working together on a screenplay for The Last Deal.

“He’s looking great, and he’s doing great,” Damon said of his longtime friend. “We’ve been working together on this screenplay, and … he’s just doing great.”

The two actors have been friends since childhood, and Damon recounted the story of how they first bonded during a recent appearance on Conan.

“I mouthed off to this kid that I knew, but he was like your [Conan’s] height, like six-foot-six, and I might have been five-three at the time, and I said something,” he told the host. “So before I knew it, it was like I was on the ground, he was above me, and I was like, ‘This is gonna be bad.’”

“It was right then that little five-foot-two Ben Affleck tackled this dude off of me, like out of nowhere,” he recalled. “I was, like, a junior and he was, like, a freshman, and he tackled this kid off of me, literally at the risk of his own life.”

Damon continued, “But I remember that was a big moment, going like, ‘This guy, he will put himself in a really bad spot for me.’ Like, ‘This is a good friend to have.’”

On Saturday, Oct. 26 Affleck had attended the UNICEF Masquerade Ball in West Hollywood, and a video from TMZ showed the actor having difficulty walking and nearly falling while making his way to his waiting car after the bash. Affleck was with musician Katie Cherry, who he reportedly began dating a few months ago after meeting through the exclusive dating app Raya.

On Sunday, the Jusice League star visited what is reportedly Garner’s home where he told TMZ that he did slip up, but won’t let the evening negatively impact his progress.

“It happens, it’s a slip, but I’m not going to let it derail me,” he said. The 47-year-old has been to rehab multiple times, first attempting sobriety in the ’90s and seeking treatment in 2001, 2017 and 2018.

“Being an alcoholic, it’s part of my life, it’s something that I deal with,” he said on the Today show in March. “It doesn’t have to subsume my whole identity and be everything, but it is something that you have to work at.”

Photo Credit: Getty / Jerritt Clark