All About Silverman & Kimmel's Matt Damon/Ben Affleck Videos

How and Why They Were Made

Jeremy Rutherfurd
If you haven't seen Sarah Silverman's recent music video about her love affair with Matt Damon - and her boyfriend, Jimmy Kimmel's response-video about his revenge-affair with Ben Affleck - then you're missing some of the funniest footage on the Internet today.

Be warned: The videos are profane and are peppered with a particularly offensive term in reference to fornication, so if such foul language bothers you, don't view them. But if you can overlook the cuss words (which are bleeped out), you're in for a very entertaining and hilarious time.

Silverman's video first aired on Kimmel's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" late-night TV show on ABC, Jan. 31. It was Kimmel's birthday, and Silverman, a guest on the show, said she had made a special video just for him. In the video, she confesses - in song - that she has been intimate with Matt Damon, and Damon himself makes an appearance - and sings a duet with Silverman - to buttress her claim.

According to Kimmel, the video had been a complete surprise. "I didn't even know what was on the tape," he told Newsweek magazine.

Prior to the making of the video, Kimmel had had a long-running joke about Matt Damon on his show, according to the website Zimbio.com. For several episodes, Kimmel would end the show, saying, "apologies to Matt Damon, but we ran out of time," as if Damon had been a guest, waiting off stage.

In one episode, the website says, Matt Damon actually did visit the show as a guest, but was the last to come on, and then stormed off in anger when Kimmel told Damon they had run out of time.

When asked by Silverman to do the video, "Matt jumped at the opportunity to get back at Jimmy," according to Zimbio.com.

Kimmel's Benn Affleck Video

After Silverman's video aired on ABC, word of it spread quickly and it became a hit on YouTube (with more than 8 million hits by the end of February). Kimmel wanted to make a video in response, and that's when Ben Affleck's name came up.

"Somebody here [on the show] had the idea of Ben Affleck, and he said, 'I was thinking the same thing,' and it all came together very quickly," Kimmel told Newsweek.

Affleck had seen Silverman's Matt Damon video and was delighted to be asked.

"I have a lot of respect for the group over there [Kimmel's] - they're really good comedians - so I just committed to it," Affleck told EW.com. "Everything I got from them was really funny and made me excited."

What's amazing about Kimmel's video is the number of celebrities that appear in it: Harrison Ford, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt, Robin Williams, Josh Groban and Huey Lewis, just to name a few.

The first big actor they scored (besides Affleck himself) was Harrison Ford. At a dinner party with either Affleck's wife or his brother, Ford mentioned that he had enjoyed the Matt Damon video. Later, when Kimmel's producer called him about the Ben Affleck video, Harrison Ford said yes.

"Once Harrison Ford came onboard, it convinced a lot of people to do it," Kimmel said in the Newsweek interview.

The Ben Affleck video aired on Sunday, Feb. 23, according to MTV.com, and within 48 hours had scored more than 2.2 million hits on YouTube.

In the video, Jimmy Kimmel tells Sarah Silverman (also in song), "I'm happy for you," but that he has something to confess himself: he's being intimate with Ben Affleck. Affleck then appears and sings of his own love for Kimmel.

The other A-list actors sing about Kimmel and Affleck's love in a chorus reminiscent of "We Are the World," while images of the besotted couple flash by. Josh Groban makes an appearance as if he were giving a concert performance.

Harrison Ford congratulates the couple by blowing them a kiss.

The video "is the most expensive piece of tape to ever air on the ["Jimmy Kimmel Live!"] show," its producer, Jill Leiderman, told MTV.com, "and worth every penny."

And what of Ben Affleck? Is he worried people might think he's gay after seeing the video?

"Hey, that could help," he told EW.com. "People might ascribe good taste to me, and they might think, 'Maybe Ben Affleck can cook.'"

Published by Jeremy Rutherfurd

An experienced reporter and editor who has worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit, Foreign Trade magazine, a China business-news site and several trade publications, I have been freelancing for the past...  View profile

2 Comments

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  • RM Gal3/28/2008

    Terrific article--loved it! Will try to check out videos tonight. I used to live just a few blocks from where Jimmy Kimmel does his show in Hollywood and once saw him at the Grove (an outdoor mall) doing a piece.

  • Irene L3/4/2008

    well, thanks for that tidbit of info!!..great job!

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