Matt Damon backtracks and says he's never used the homophobic 'F-slur' in his personal life, or slurs of any kind

• Matt Damon received backlash after he said he stopped using a homophobic slur only a few months ago.
• He said in a new statement that he hadn't called anyone the slur and didn't "use slurs of any kind."
• In the statement, the actor also said, "I stand with the LGBTQ+ community."

Matt Damon backtracked on previous comments and said on Monday that he had never called anyone a certain homophobic slur "in my personal life" and did not "use slurs of any kind," Variety reported.

The actor received backlash after the UK's Sunday Times published an interview with him in which he said he had relatively recently "retired" the use of what he said one of his daughters called the "F-slur."

He said in the Times interview that he was making a joke months ago when his daughter called him out on it.

In a statement to Variety, he said: "I have never called anyone 'f-----t' in my personal life, and this conversation with my daughter was not a personal awakening. I do not use slurs of any kind."

Damon explained the context of his conversation with his daughter, saying they were talking about how he had "heard the word 'f*g' used on the street" where he grew up in Boston. This led to her expressing "incredulity that there could ever have been a time where that word was used unthinkingly," he said.

He also said that he understood why his statement "led many to assume the worst."

"To be as clear as I can be, I stand with the LGBTQ+ community," he said in the statement.