Actor Matt Damon, 55, crashed the Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from the audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and security escorted him out after he began heckling host Jimmy Kimmel, 58.
Damon appeared in the audience on the opening night of Kimmel’s weeklong residency, Sept. 28. Wearing a Boston Red Sox cap, he began shouting a few lines into Kimmel’s monologue.
Kimmel, in his monologue, noted that the postseason wild-card series would start in the Bronx. “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,” he said.
Damon interrupted from his seat, cheering for his home team. “Go Sox! Go Sox!” he said. New York Yankees fans in the audience booed him as he cheered for Boston, according to coverage of the video of the exchange.
The Ceremonial First Red Sox Fan
Kimmel asked the heckler to identify himself. “You, the loser in the Red Sox cap, what is your name?” Kimmel said. Damon answered, “You know my name.”
“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. He then called for security to remove him: “Security, please remove this ‘Masshole’ from the theater.”
Damon tried a defense. “Wait a minute, I’m not even trying to get on the show. I’m just here with family,” he said. Kimmel replied, “Security — wait, what family are you here with?”
Kimmel’s Mother and Sister
“I’m here with your mom,” Damon said, and Joan Kimmel, the host’s mother, stood up beside him. “I’m also here with your sister,” Damon added, and 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 of the auditorium, and Joan and Jill Kimmel followed him up the aisle. Kimmel shouted from the stage as Damon was led out: “You don’t bring my mother and my sister with you.” Damon fired back on his way out, “Listen, I’ll tell you what. You can keep me off the show; you can’t keep me out of your mom!”
Kimmel closed the bit with a line to the crowd after Damon’s removal. “Everyone in this section, you should all probably get tested for HPV,” Kimmel told the audience.
The three-game wild-card series between the Yankees and the Red Sox began the day after the Sept. 28 episode, starting in the Bronx. The Yankees took Game 1 of the series 9-0 on Tuesday, Sept. 29, and completed a two-game sweep with a 9-2 win on Wednesday, Sept. 30, eliminating the Red Sox.
Two Decades of Mock Rivalry
Kimmel and Damon have maintained a mock rivalry on the air for two decades, and this time Damon chose baseball as his weapon. The 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.” The joke hardened into a tradition.
Damon finally turned up as a guest in September 2006. Kimmel cut him off and ended the show, which kept the feud alive rather than settling it.
In March 2023, the two men attempted peace, 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 within minutes, and a year later, 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.
Damon is a father of four and has never needed an invitation to participate.
The Show and the Host
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” launched in 2003 on ABC, and the running gag has outlasted nearly everything else about the program. Kimmel has said the early days of the show were “murderously difficult.” He recalled that most publicists were wary of him early on and that he leaned on a small circle of famous friends to fill the guest chair.
Kimmel has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards three times — 2012, 2016 and 2020 — plus the 2012 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. At the 68th Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, which Kimmel hosted, “The People v. O.J. Simpson” dominated the night.
Kimmel has described his professional rivalries in far milder terms than his on-air persona suggests. He told IndieWire in 2016 that late-night hosts chase the same bookings and little else.