Minnie Driver Candidly Opens Up About Matt Damon Heartbreak On ‘The Jennifer Hudson Show’: “I Wish I Could Have Told Her … ‘It’ll Be Fine'”

Minnie Driver is getting real about her ’90s breakup with Matt Damon. On today’s episode of The Jennifer Hudson Show, the actress recalled feeling “totally heartbroken” at the 1998 Oscars, where both she and Damon were nominated for their roles in Good Will Hunting.

The conversation started when host Jennifer Hudson pulled up a photo of Driver’s reaction to the movie winning Best Original Screenplay. She recently made headlines for a comment she posted under the clip on social media in which she revealed that she had been “devastated” that night since she and Damon had only broken up “a few weeks” earlier, and he had brought his new girlfriend as his date to the ceremony.

“Oh my God, my little face!” Driver said upon seeing a still of her reaction. “First of all, I want to wrap my arms around that young woman and hug her and go, ‘It’s all going to be fine. Like, honey, don’t worry.'”

She continued, “He had a new girlfriend [and] I was totally heartbroken, but anyone who’s been heartbroken can understand — it’s like the last thing you want is everybody having a window in on that.”

Driver — who dated the actor from 1997 to 1998 — noted that she hadn’t seen the clip of her reaction to Damon and Ben Affleck‘s big win until recently.

“I’d never seen my face [and] the reaction when they won,” she said. “They cut to me because it was a camera right in the face of the poor, young 25-year-old girl who’s about to burst into tears, and it was so raw and vulnerable that I commented, ‘Gosh, I was devastated. Wish I could have celebrated more as it was such an amazing moment.’ Which it was.”

Looking back on that evening, Driver revealed what she would’ve told her 25-year-old self.

“From this vantage point, 20/20 vision, much later in my life, I wish I could have told her, ‘Honey, it’s cool. You can celebrate and life’s going to be great and beautiful and hard and amazing and you’re going to love again. It’ll be fine,'” she said.

The actress added that her profession makes her heartbreak “very public.”

“So maybe just us all relating to each other a bit more as humans and that we have these similar experiences through different lenses, perhaps we can treat each other a bit more kindly,” she concluded.

The Jennifer Hudson Show airs on weekdays. You can find local listings on the website.