Matthew McConaughey Didn’t Talk to His Mom For 8 Years After She Leaked Stories About Him to the Press

He’s forgiven her now, but Matthew McConaughey didn’t talk to his mom for eight years after she leaked stories about him to the press.

In an interview on The Howard Stern Show on Thursday, October 22, to promote his new memoir, Greenlights, McConaughey revealed that he estranged himself from his mother, Mary Kathlene McCabe, earlier in his career after he discovered that she leaked private conversations between them to the media. In his interview on The Howard Stern Show, McConaughey recalled one incident where his mom had a fan on a phone call with him without McConaughey knowing. “I was calling my mom at that time after I’d gotten famous, needing to talk to my mom,” he said. “And my mom was not the only one on the phone. The woman that was on the phone was a fan. Of my fame.”

He continued, “I would have conversations and then all of a sudden — whoop — what we’d talk about would end up in the paper three days later. I was like, ‘Mom, that was between us.’”

Though McConaughey asked his mom to stop talking to the media, she continued. Their relationship hit a breaking point when McConaughey learned that his mom went on the ’90s news show, Hard Copy, and gave viewers a tour of his childhood bedroom. “There’s Mom, giving someone a tour through the house, [saying] ‘Here’s where I caught him with so-and-so in bed. Here’s where I saw him in the shower, you know what he was doing in there, ha ha ha,'” McConaughey recalled.

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He continued, “And I call her up, and I go, ‘Mom, what did you do?’ And she goes, ‘What are you talking about?'” Eventually, McConaughey’s mother confessed to the tour and told him, “I didn’t think you’d find out.”

“She was always still my mom, but she became a different person,” McConaughey said. “I just had to make some boundaries. And it was a strenuous relationship for eight years.”

After eight years, McConaughey confesses that he and his mom are “back completely now.” Now, he encourages her to chase the spotlight. “Once I got my career sort of stable and felt on my feet, I let go of the reins and said, ‘Go get it, Mom. Whatever you want. There’s the camera,'” he said. “And she’s been awesome. She’s got incredible stuff to say and do. And I’m like, go for it. It was tough for eight years, but we went through it, and we’re on the other side of it.”

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