As Matthew McConaughey re-explores the most important parts of his life while writing his memoir, we, as fans, get to hear some of the most intimate details from his past straight from the source. Now, he’s diving deeper into the relationship he has with his mother.
The Dallas Buyer Club actor gave some insight into his past estrangement from his mom during a recent appearance on Jada Pinkett Smith’s Facebook series, Red Table Talk. He sat down with his mom, Mary Kathlene McCabe , for a joint interview, where both parties addressed their 8-year “rough patch.”
“[My mom] and I had a rough patch about eight years after I got famous, but we healed that up back in 2004,” the 51-year-old told hosts Jada, her daughter Willow Smith, and her mother, Adrienne Banfield Norris. ”As soon as I got famous after A Time to Kill, I started having my weekly Sunday call home to call my mother. Mother wasn’t answering the phone.”
“A fan of my fame was answering the phone,” McConaughey revealed. ”I was trying to find my own balance with fame and stuff, and I would share things with her and, you know, to whatever amount of innocence it was, we can now completely laugh at it, but some of the things I would share might show up in the six o‘clock news three days later.”
The father of three went on to open up about the time his mother let cameras into their family’s home.
“I’m over here going, ’Holy s**t, Mom!’ I call her up and of course she’s watching it too, so I pick up the phone and I hear the same show in the background.”
He continues, “I go, ‘Mom!’ [and she says] ‘What are you talking about?’ I go, ’What do you mean, what am I talking about? I’m watching the same damn thing you are. You got Hard Copy in my bedroom!’ She goes, ’Oh that...I didn’t think you’d find out.’”
While things were going downhill for a while, that specific incident is what led to Matthew shunning his mother.
“So there were years there that I would not share things with her because I was finding my own balance, building my own ship and I was like, ‘Look, Mom. Loose lips will sink ships,” he said about the measures he was forced to take. ”There are a lot of people that would like to know these things and it.”
“I was not able to talk to her as my mom for about eight years and then I got my career stabilized enough,” he went on to explain. “My boat was built well enough that I didn‘t think she could sink it and then I just took the reins off and said, ‘Mom, hit that red carpet. Talk to all of them, tell them all the stories you want,’ and she’s been great about it since.”
Check out the full episode of Red Table Talk down below.
