Minnie Driver and Alyssa Milano have criticised Matt Damon over his comments on the sexual misconduct scandal engulfing Hollywood.

Damon, 47, sparked controversy when he said that there are different levels of behaviour and not all the men who have been accused should be painted with the same brush.

“I do believe that there’s a spectrum of behaviour and we’re going to have to figure, you know, there’s a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation,” he told Popcorn With Peter Travers, on ABC News.

Matt Damon (PA)
Matt Damon (PA)

“Both of those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.”

British actress Driver, 47, who once dated Damon, her Good Will Hunting co-star, wrote on Twitter: “God God, seriously?”

“Gosh it’s so interesting (profoundly unsurprising) how men with all these opinions about women’s differentiation between sexual misconduct, assault and rape reveal themselves to be utterly tone deaf and as a result, systemically part of the problem,” she wrote.

Damon had said: “We’re in this watershed moment and I think it’s great. It’s wonderful that women are feeling empowered to tell their stories and it’s totally necessary.”

He added: “We live in this culture of outrage and injury, that we’re going to have to correct enough to kind of go, ‘Wait a minute. None of us came here perfect’.”

Alyssa Milano (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP)
Alyssa Milano (Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP)

Charmed actress Milano, 44, who instigated the “me too” social media campaign to highlight the widespread nature of sexual assault, also took issue with Damon’s comments, saying: “It’s the micro that makes the macro.

“We are in a culture of outrage because the magnitude of rage is, in fact, overtly outrageous. And it is righteous,” she said.

“I have been a victim of each component of the sexual assault spectrum of which you speak. They all hurt. And they are all connected to a patriarchy intertwined with normalised, accepted – even welcomed – misogyny.

“We are not outraged because someone grabbed our asses in a picture. We are outraged because we were made to feel this was normal … We are outraged because we were silenced for so long.

“There are different stages of cancer. Some more treatable than others. But it’s still cancer.

“Sexual harassment, misconduct, assault and violence is a systemic disease. The tumour is being cut out right now with no anaesthesia. Please send flowers.”

Damon had said he could not think of a female friend who did not have a story to tell from “some point of their life” and that the “rotten apples are getting weeded out” of Hollywood.