This is what happens when you don’t chew your food.
During a new interview with Variety published Monday, Aug. 18, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel revealed how he once saved Matt Damon’s life after the “Good Will Hunting” star, 54, began choking on a rack of pork ribs.
“Matt Damon was over at my house one night for dinner. I made pork ribs,” Kimmel, 57, recalled. “He came late, was very hungry, and started eating fast. He started choking on a pork rib.”
“It was stuck in his throat for about an hour and a half,” the comedian continued. “His brother was there. I said, ‘We have got to get him to the hospital,’ because if he dies in my house, I’m going to prison for the rest of my life. I will never be able to explain this as anything other than a murder.”
After consulting the internet to figure out how to save the “Martian” star’s life, Kimmel and Damon’s older brother, Kyle learned that all they needed to do was feed him small pieces of bread.
“We did a lot of YouTube-ing and finally concluded that eating little bits of bread was the way to get that rib to work its way down into his stomach – and bread saved him,” Kimmel revealed.
“We tried the Heimlich many times,” he added. “It was too far down.”
Damon’s near-death experience eating Kimmel’s pork ribs marks the latest surprising incident to unfold amid the pair’s infamous and long-lasting “feud.”
Last month, the pretend rivals butted heads once again when Damon and “Jeopardy!” champion-turned-host Ken Jennings competed on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” which Kimmel currently hosts.
“I’m begrudgingly going to shake your hand,” Kimmel told Damon after the actor and Jennings won the $1 million prize.
Elsewhere in his interview, Kimmel opened up about the future of late-night TV – especially after it was recently announced that CBS is canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” after next year.
“Network television is declining. There’s no question about that,” Kimmel began. “But more people are watching late-night television than ever before – and I include Johnny Carson in that.”
“I think if you really look at how people are watching these shows, and the numbers, it’s right up there with the top shows on Netflix and Hulu,” he continued. “Yet in the media, you’d think this is a rotting corpse – which it most certainly is not.”
“It just doesn’t add up,” the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host added. “It’s a great storyline for the press, but it’s simply not true.”
As for reports that Colbert’s show was losing upwards of $40 million a year before it was axed, Kimmel called “bulls–t.”
“I just want to say that the idea that Stephen Colbert’s show was losing $40 million a year is beyond nonsensical,” he charged. “These alleged insiders who supposedly analyze the budgets of the shows – I don’t know who they are, but I do know they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“There’s just not a snowball’s chance in hell that that’s anywhere near accurate,” Kimmel added.