Matthew McConaughey recalled how his mother, Kay McConaughey, supported him after he was arrested for playing bongo drums while naked and high in 1999.
The 55-year-old actor detailed the notorious incident in his bestselling 2020 memoir, “Greenlights.” At last weekend’s Texas Book Festival, which featured McConaughey and Malcolm Gladwell as the headlining authors, the Oscar winner joined director Richard Linklater for a conversation about “Greenlights.”
While speaking with Linklater, McConaughey remembered the advice Kay shared with him after the infamous arrest.
“‘You go outside in front of that media, and you hold your head high,'” the Texas native recalled Kay telling him, according to People magazine. “‘I know what you were doing last night playing bongos, smoking that funny stuff in your birthday suit, and you’ve done it many times before. And I know you’re going to do it again.'”
Matthew McConaughey recalled advice his mother Kay gave him after he was arrested for playing the bongos naked while high in 1999. (Getty)
McConaughey told Linklater, who directed the actor in his breakthrough movie, “Dazed and Confused,” that Kay had shared similar words of wisdom with him before.
“‘Don’t walk into a place like you want to buy it, walk in it like you own it.’ She tells me that before we go to prom. She tells me that on the morning before I went in to go do a screen test for ‘A Time to Kill,’” he said.
In “Greenlights,” McConaughey wrote that the arrest occurred after he attended a football game during which his alma mater’s team, the Texas Longhorns, squared off against the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Kay told her son to “hold your head high” and face the media. (Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)
After the Longhorns triumphed over the Huskers, McConaughey, who was 29 at the time, recalled that Austin was “on fire” and “it was time to celebrate.”
“I partied through the night into Sunday, and through Sunday night without sleeping a wink,” he wrote. “At 2:30 that Monday morning, I finally decided to wind down. It was time to lower the lights, get undressed, open up the window and let the jasmine scent from my garden come inside.
“It was time to smoke a bowl and listen to the beautiful African melodic beats of Henri Dikongué play through my home speakers. It was time to stand over my drum set and follow the rhythm of the blues before they got to Memphis on my favorite Afro-Cuban drum born of ceremony and speaking in tongues, the congas.”
“You go outside in front of that media, and you hold your head high.”
However, McConaughey wrote that his nude jam session was unexpectedly interrupted.
“What I didn’t know was that while I was banging away in my bliss, two Austin policemen also thought it was time to barge into my house unannounced, wrestle me to the ground with nightsticks, handcuff me and pin me to the floor,” he recalled.
McConaughey remembered that one officer told him that he was being charged with “disturbing the peace, possession of marijuana and resisting arrest.'”
“F— you, motherf—–! You broke in my house! F–, yeah, I resisted!” the “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” star recalled yelling at the officer
McConaughey detailed the arrest in his 2020 memoir, “Greenlights.” (Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Sygma via Getty Images)
McConaughey wrote that he refused when the other officer tried to wrap a blanket around the actor’s naked body.
‘”Ohhhh no!” I barked. “I’m not putting s— on! My naked ass is proof I was mindin’ my own business!”’ he remembered telling the officer.
As the actor was being escorted to the police car, he saw that his arrest had attracted a crowd.
McConaughey noted that “word must have spread over the police scanner as to just who had been arrested because there on the street were six lit-up cop cars and about 40 of my neighbors.”
After arriving at the Austin Police Department, McConaughey remembered that a fellow inmate convinced him to put on a “pair of men’s orange institutional pants.”
McConaughey initially had told the inmate that his naked state was “proof of my innocence.”
“‘We all innocent, man. Trust me, you do wanna put these on,'” the actor remembered the inmate saying.
McConaughey and lawyer Joe Turner outside the jail in 1999. (Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Sygma via Getty Images)
“Maybe it was his honest eyes or the fact that he was a fellow offender, or maybe it was the sudden realization that, when a six-foot, six-inch jailbird built like a brick s—house tells you, ‘You do wanna put on some pants before you go in the clink,’ it’s probably best to listen,” McConaughey wrote.
After spending the night in jail, McConaughey was visited by Judge Penny Wilkov and criminal defense attorney Joe Turner.
Wilkov decided to dismiss disturbing the peace and possession misdemeanor charges and allowed McConaughey to be released on bond for resisting arrest.
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McConaughey wrote that Turner advised him to leave the jail from the back entrance because reporters had gathered in front of the building.
The actor wrote that he felt “guilty” and was unsure how to handle his departure from jail. At that point, he called Kay.
The actor’s charges of disturbing the peace and possession were dismissed, and he was released on bond for resisting arrest. (Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Sygma via Getty Images)
“Looking for some fearless consolation, I decided to call my mom before I chose which way to leave my first prison stint,” McConaughey wrote. “Maybe it was the fact that while I was sure she would have no mercy for my circumstance, at the same time, I knew she would pour a drink and toast to how it was I got into it.
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“Was it going to be her that answered or was it going to be that new groupie fan? I didn’t know. Turns out it was both.
“‘They what, Matthew?! Broke into your house!? Those son of a bitches, you keep your head up,” he recalled Kay saying. “‘There is nothing wrong with smokin’ a little fun stuff and playing your drums naked at night in your own home; who do they think they are comin in your house like that?!’
“Just what I needed,” McConaughey wrote. “I hung up and decided to stride toward the media mob out front instead of sneaking out the back.
“Two days later, BONGO NAKED T-shirts were all over Austin.”
Matthew McConaughey speaks during the 2024 Texas Book Festival in Austin. (Gary Miller/Getty Images)
During McConaughey’s appearance at the Texas Book Fair, Linklater pointed out that McConaughey wasn’t the only author in the family.
“You’re not the first McConaughey to write a memoir,” the director told him.
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“Your mom beat you to it,” Linklater added, referring to Kay’s 2008 self-published memoir.
“You want to know what my mom’s memoir is called? ‘I Amaze Myself.’ She has a bumper sticker — still does to this day — ‘I Amaze Myself,'” McConaughey said.
“She’s 92, and you can’t argue with it,” he added.