Entertainment

Matt Damon reveals his daughter contracted coronavirus while he was stuck in Ireland

Matt Damon, who has been in Ireland during the coronavirus pandemic, said his step-daughter, Alexia Barroso, has fully recovered from COVID-19.

By The Boston Globe

May 14, 2020

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It’s no secret Matt Damon has been locked down in Ireland during the coronavirus outbreak and locals in Dublin suburb of Dalkey seem to love having the actor around. But it hasn’t been an easy stretch for the “Ford v Ferrari” star and his family. As he revealed on Ireland’s Spin 103.8’s “Fully Charged” radio show: his oldest daughter contracted COVID-19.

When Damon traveled to Ireland in March, his wife, Luciana Barroso, and three youngest children went with him. But, as he told “Fully Charged” hosts Graham O’Toole and Nathan O’Reilly, his stepdaughter, Alexia Barroso, remained in New York where she attends school. Damon said the 21-year-old and her roommates contracted the coronavirus but have since fully recovered.

Fully Charged’s Graham & Nathan did it!

Here’s the WORLD EXCLUSIVE interview with Matt Damon from the safety of quarantine in Dalkey.

He talks his daughter getting COVID-19, how he ended up in Ireland, that SuperValu bag photo & lots more!#MattOnSpinhttps://t.co/b09WcbMXrR

— spin1038 (@spin1038) May 13, 2020

“We’ve got the three younger ones, and our oldest one, we’ll reunite with her at the end of the month,” Damon said on the show. “But everybody’s okay.”

Damon says he plans to return to Los Angeles by the end of May and said Barroso will reconvene with the rest of her family there. The actor expressed some concerns about returning to the U.S. “We don’t have adequate testing so there’s going to be another surge it looks like back home,” he said.

The radio hosts seemed genuinely stunned that the Oscar winner was calling into their show. O’Reilly opened the segment by saying, “Look Matt, I honestly feel like I’m about to throw up. I feel like, in a few seconds, I’m going to wake up naked with drool on my pillow.”

Damon explained that he came to Ireland to shoot a film in March, just before the lock down went into effect. He and his family have been holed up there ever since. The radio hosts pointed out how protective of Damon the residents of Dalkey have been for the past two months. O’Reilly admitted he quietly infiltrated a residents’ Facebook group, trying to get information on the actor’s whereabouts, and got kicked out within 24 hours. Still, the DJ joked of his own persistence: “I hunt you out like a truffle hog.”

It wasn’t a secret that the hosts were hoping to talk to the actor. U2 singer Bono, Damon’s neighbor in Dalkey, told the actor over FaceTime that the “Fully Charged” crew was campaigning to chat with the actor.

“You guys will love this,” Damon said during the interview. “[Bono] said to me last week, ‘You know, there’s a local radio station that’s looking for you.’ That was like the final impetus for me. I was, like, I really have to … call into that show. It’s gone on too long.”