Matt Damon is also amongst many celebrities quarantining currently due to the coronavirus outbreak. The actor is self-isolating with his family, including his wife, Luciana Barroso. They are in Dublin, Ireland, or more accurately on the coastal Dublin suburb of Dalkey.
The couple has been married for 15 years now, and Barroso talked about how did the two meet. “I was working as a bartender in South Beach (Miami), and he was shooting a movie there, and the crew ended up in the bar one Saturday night. Matt’s story is that he saw me across the room, and there was a light on me. And I’m like: ‘yeah it was a nightclub – there were lights everywhere!’”
She continued, “He had started getting recognized and asked for pictures and autographs, and then it got kind of aggressive because people are drinking and stuff, and so he came and hid behind my bar … [wanting to] just hang out back there and have a drink. He says, ‘oh I saw you, and I really wanted to talk to you.’ I put him to work with me! I said: ‘you know, if you’re going to be back here, you can’t just be standing there!’ He had trained as a bartender for a film years before, so he started making drinks. He made me a ton of money in tips that night because, of course, everyone wanted to go and see him. So it turned into a really fun night, and then 15 years later, here we are!”
Barroso was a single mother when they met, and she recalled what Damon said to her that night. “We definitely had a connection right away, it was so easy to talk to each other, we were very comfortable [with each other]. By the end of the night, he invited me to go out with his friends. But I was like: ‘I can’t, I have a four-year-old daughter [Alexia], I’m not going anywhere.’ That was one of the things he loved that I had a daughter. He said: ‘I love that you’re a mum, and that’s your priority.’ Some guys might have been different, they might think it’s complicated, but for him, it wasn’t.”
Today, the couple have Gia, Isabella, and Stella, in addition to her daughter Alexia.