Matt Damon has five dogs and a very clear theory about how they all ended up at his house.
The 55-year-old actor explained during a visit to a shelter: “We love rescuing dogs. They’re the best“. And when asked who in the family is the one who rescues them, he didn’t hesitate: “Definitely my wife. At this point, there’s not even a discussion; she simply comes home with them”
He was referring to Luciana Barroso, the Argentine woman he has been married to since 2005. They live in Brooklyn, and according to Damon, if it weren’t for that, they’d have more: the five they already share, Charlie, Osita, Cookie, Rudy and Scoutie, are between 2 and 12 years old, and all were rescued.
He said that after a family trip to Costa Rica in 2014, they came back with a cat and a dog. He says Osita, now 12, is his “apocalypse dog”: if anything went wrong, she would be the one they could rely on.
Damon is leading this year’s Clear the Shelters 2026 campaign, an initiative aimed at emptying animal shelters by finding the animals new homes.