Breaking Family Cycles with Matthew McConaughey

packed my bags for me, His parents volatile relationship. Dad flipped the dining room table into the ceiling, got up and began to stalk Mom. I really want to know how you were able to break these cycle, his fairy tale romance, What it was about her that you knew that she was the one? And that's a love story from all Man and an RTT exclusive. I was not able to talk to her as my mom for about eight years. The woman who raised him, Matthew's mother, her

husband died. Making up to me, I worked him out a big boy Where you are plus a surprise reunion thirty years in the making. Alright, r t T fan, We've got a superstar coming to the table. His name is Mston McConn. I'm excited about that. He's a husband, a father, an Oscar winner, and now he can add

best selling author to his list of accomplishments. Two and a half years ago, Matthew went into what he calls solitary confinement in the desert and he spent weeks alone without electricity, sifting through thirty six years of personal journals to write his new book. He calls it a love letter to life, and I gotta say it is one of those books that is full of gems and a lot of revelations. Matthew, what's happened in their best selling author right that? Now you're like on the top of

every list. It was great. It's just good of a reception as I could have hoped. Yeah, we were talking about your book as a family. An idea that really sparked for us was breaking familial cycles, cycles that need to be broken. I mean it's taken me for what twenty years, you know, like kind of break my own familial cycles, you know, within my family, within my relationship. I disagree with that though with me. Yeah, sorry, Matthew, about to have a family moment here real quickly. And

what we're um certainly, and how you've raised your children. Yeah, I definitely was able to break that cycle. Ignot rociate on on the Yeah, on the cycle breakers and you've created because that was a huge, you know, difference, because I raised you the way Mommy raised me, but you did something totally different. But it did and was learning while you were doing it. Back to you, Matthew, and

I'm taking notes of it and writing things down. I really want to know how you were able to break those cycles, because from what I understand, your parents had a really intense relationship, the way that they loved each other. Matthew's parents were locked in a volatile, sometimes physically violent relationship. His book green Lights starts with an incident between mom and dad in their kitchen. Sure you want more potatoes,

fat man, she barked, look at you, fat billion years. Sure, eat up, fat man, she yapped, as she scraped overwhelming amounts of mat potatoes on his plate. That was it. Dad flipped the dining room table into the ceiling, got up and began to stalk Mom. She ran to the wall mounted telephone on the other side of the kitchen to call nine one one. As he closed in, Mom grabbed the handheld into the phone off the wall mountain raked it across his brow. Dad's nose was broken. Blood

was everywhere. Mom then ran to the cabin and pulled out a twelve inch chef's knife, then squared off at him. Come on, batman, I'll cut you from your nuts to your gulliver. A little five year old Matthew hit behind the couch and sphere. Seconds later, they moved towards each other and met in an animal embrace. They dropped to their knees, then to the bloody catchup cover linolean kitchen floor and made love. A red light turned green. M it sounds like to me that you wanted to do

the your relationship with your wife a bit differently. Let me stop by saying this. I maintained much more then I broke the chain of how my parents. I have different means with which I communicate with my wife and my mom and dad did the way my mom and dad communicated. I always tell stories of sort of discipline or even fights that my parents had as my greatest

love stories in our family. I think the reason I do that is that those were the times where the the love and our family where it seems like it was being challenged the most and it might break, but it never had a chance. You know, my mom and dad, we had a very passionate relationship. Twice divorced, thrice married, well once again the loved one. If the love would want it would have been twice married, thrice divorced. The

love ended up winning three. A lot of times it was like I love you, I just don't like you right now. The love was never in question. My mom, to this day, who's eighty eight, with her middle finger that goes won't, won't, won't, won't won't because it's been broken four times, because she's banged my dad in the head until he'd go didn't stop it. She picked those fights, and she to this day would say, that's what I needed to communicate, That's what I needed to communicate. Now

I go, well, I'm bad. I don't need that. Glad my wife doesn't need that. But hey, that's how y'all roll. My mom and dad, their relationship was like hurricane in the Pacific. I'll take a river with a few rapids. My threshold for like well and I catched myself is if I even raised my voice in our household, I immediately have alarmed that goes off and says, all right, mccannae, what did you not handle getting to this point that you had to raise your for your father? And I

would like that too. We were very conscious of not raising our voices. I would always try you were upset because you got real quiet, Yes exactly, it would just get real quiet, and I'd be like, Okay, they're really getting into it now. Yeah. So it's so funny Matthew that you use your voice be your barometer. Yeah, the

tone of it. Yeah, I've got a pretty quick threshold for that, and I'm not perfect at it, but I do at least start doing inventory very quickly if I get to where maybe my remark will be sharp, right, you know, and I'll go okay, um, all right, mr cool, what do we've not handled getting to this point where we had to get? You know? The other thing is I have different means with which I am still the same values and my children then my parents did in me.

They were from a different era too. It was the era of if you're a kid, and you asked why it was because I said so exactly. Yeah, we're not talking about this. This is not up for discussion. Because I'm your parent, I said so the end. And in our family, you didn't get grounded if you've got in trouble because, as my mom always said, that would be taking your time away from you in time as your removed valuable asset. It's a binge your bat over. I'm

gonna whoop your butt. Matthew's parents believed in teaching their kids lessons with tough love and an occasional whooping. I got whipped unto my butt bled for putting on a cracker Jack tattoo when I was ten years old. When I first threatened to run away from home, my parents packed my bags for me. I learned to swim when my mom threw me in the Lanto River and I was either going to float off the rocky waterfall thirty yards downstream or make it back to the bank. I

made it to the bank. There was nothing fictitious about the love, though the love was real, bloody sometimes, but never in question. I never got injured, but I do remember the values that were instilled in me from the butt whoopen. I got my first one for not answering to my name. I got my second one for saying the word I can't instead of saying I'm having trouble. I got my third butt whooping for lying and my

fourth for saying I hate you to my brother. So what I remember is that those four times I got in trouble, I earned it, and the reasons I got in trouble were answer to your name. Love. Don't hate, have trouble doing something? But does say can't tell the truth, don't lie. I'll even go so far as to say this. I remember one night I got in trouble from my dad for lying. And all your kids out there. If you get home and you one of your parents is on the phone awake when they would be asleep, and

they asked you, did you steal pizza tonight? It means they know you did, But I said no, I don't think. So he gave me two chance, pree chance, the fourth chance, and I lied again. I got it back in. What I remember that is the tears in my dad's eyes because he was broken hearted that his dog one son couldn't tell him the truth. It wasn't about the stolen pizza,

was about you lied to me son. That broke his heart, hurt him a whole more than that back end hurt me like he would wouldn't being a good enough dad if you had taught me where I couldn't. Son, can't even tell me the damn truth about stealing the damn pizza. No, when I was disrespecting him. What he was trying to teach you is that and you're disrespecting yourself. Yeah, that was one of the rules in our house with the kids.

It was like, you tell me you're not go get in trouble, but if you lie to me, it's gonna be hell to pay. I had a couple. I had a couple of hell to pays. I tried it. Yeah, you did. Try me. I tried. I tried both of everybody. I was the tryer. You're are you a scorpio, Matthew Am So this is okay the scorpios that I know, all right, you seem very chill. You seem like you seem like super chill. You're not. You're not a try or you know what I mean. But me, I was

trying my parents every chance that I got. Well, yeah, yea, your scorpio as well. I mean, look, my thing is scorpios always equated to the incredible hull. Remember that show, you know, Messed With Bill Bixby. One time he says, no, thank you, I don't want to fight messed with him. Two times I says please, I said I don't want to fight messed with him. The third time he turns green and doesn't just get even, he gets way ahead. Yeah that's a scorpio. That's a scorpio for you. Yeah.

I go about sort of teaching my children differently. I do have longer conversations with my children about things and why, um, you know how that goes. Sometimes that suns rising the next day you're like, are we still here? Sometimes to get to that point, you know what, just because I said so, that's it, and I can get out lasted. At times they were like, we wish we wouldn't have made them ask why so much? There there's too many questions.

There many questions. And I also was very clear for any time I got in trouble, I was like, yep, guilty. I never judged my parents for how they treat each other, how they raised us. Yeah, that is really that's really interesting because so many of us will judge our parents, so many of us will blame our parents for you know, if you hadn't done that, maybe I wouldn't be as crazy as if I chose not to say, oh, I

was victimized better situation. I do not deny that situation that I may have been in, but it's up to me to choose if from victim mind right now, that's real talk, it really is. You know, like if people like, well, you were in a violent home with your mom and dad, you should feel this way and and you know you should talk about it this way and blah blah blah, and it's like, yeah, I don't think that's the world's right to put that on us. So is it possible

we can bring your mom out? The woman that they call k mac mac has been over in the wings. Here come hot and feisty, and may scoot me out of the frank. Though Matthew and his mother had difficulties at times, like a good old Southern boy and a great son, he never lost admiration for his mother. She's a true baller. She's beat two types of cancer on nothing more than ashburn and denial. She's a woman that says, I'm gunna before she can, I would before she could,

and I'll be there before she's invited. She's eighty eight now and seldom do I go to bed after her or wake up before her. Come on, girls, some young lookod now which one's which? Come on, that's my mother? Where is my daughter? Uh? Huh? And that's my mommy and I'm her mommy. Okay, So you've got three generations. We got three generations. So you've been quarantined and with the family. How has that been going. You've been with Matthew and the whole gang the last seven months? Well,

it's been it's been really really lovely. I'm enduring so much being around my grandchildren, and I'm very, very comfortable with them. They're very Matthew is a very good son. I tell him that all the time. He's good to me. Matthew was really easy to raise. I mean he really was. He would listen to me and sometimes he wouldn't want to discuss it with me, you know, and that only went so far because he's good at trying you to change your mind, you know what I mean, He works

at it. Yes, Hey, I'm gonna give myself some credit raising him, right, So credit. How are you different as a grandmother than you were as a mother, because I know I was different, No, no different. I think those grandchildren the same as I did my kids. You know, they have they have respect for me and don't smart off to me. Now that the older to have, But the younger one did and it didn't turn out where you know what, the miss came back. Let me tell you this one. My mother was the same way. She

doesn't let me have it many times. She didn't play with her grandkids either, So I completely yes, I wouldn't say get away with things with me. You know, they can't play one against the other. Whatever their parents say, that's what they're gonna do. I mean, I I have I respect their parents for raising them the way they do,

and I don't spoil them at all. When my mother became a grandmother and she came around and really helped me with the kids, any unresolved issues or pain that was between us really got healed in me being able

to watch my mother as a grandmother. Because she was a young mom, so she had me at seventeen and she had some drug abuse issues probably my entire child for my entire childhood, so I didn't really get a mother, but I got to see her as a mother to me as an adult and as a grandmother, right, It really created this beautiful healing component between us. You and I had had a rough passion about eight years right after I got famous, but we healed that up back

in two thousand and four. As soon as I got famous, after Time to Kill, I started to having my weekly Sunday call home to call my mother, get car be Sunday. Mother wasn't answering the phone. A fan of my fame was answering the phone. I was trying to find my own balance with with fame and stuff. And I would share things with her, and you know, to whatever amount of innocence it was, I can now come, we can

now completely laugh at it. But some of those things I would share might show up in the six o'clock news three days later. Um, for instance, hard copy. I'ming home at my beach house. Uh, and I got a buddy calls me and goes, hey, are you watching this? Because watching what he does? Put it on channel four whatever it was. And here's a camera going through our bedroom. Mom's leading the camera gonna and there's the bed where

I caught him with Michelle. You know, I think we'll be able because he didn't last over here's the bathroom, and of course I walked in him on there and caught him doing you know what before as well. But don't worry about snow, big deal, and I'm going, holy mom, I call her up. Of course she's watching it too, so she picks up the phone and I hear the same damn show in the background, like, what are you talking about? What do you mean? What am I talking about?

I'm watching the same damn thing you are. You've got a hard copy, you know, in my bedroom. She goes like, oh, that got that, and she goes, I didn't think you'd find out. I didn't know. So there was years there where I would not share things with her because I was, you know, again, finding my own balance, building my own ship. And I was like, look, my loose lips will sink ships. There are a lot of people that would like to

know these things that it's none of their business. I was not able to talk to her as my mom for about eight years, and then I got my career stabilized enough, my boat was built well enough where I didn't feel like 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 those stories you want, and she's been great about it ever since. So that's beautiful. You know, it's such a trip, Matthew,

because I know I had to tell my mom. I was like stot Would all asking everybody for pictures. I know, she like Listen Will's family, they get to take pictures with whoever, they whoever they want to take pictures with. But this one right here was like, don't you dad, don't you dad as anybody for a picture. Yeah, I have no pictures because at the time, I was just like, you know, people want their times, right, and I didn't

understand that. I definitely understand it. Though, I definitely understand. It doesn't mean I don't want the pictures, but I do understand. Yeah, I was enduring his fame more than he was. I guess, yeah, absolutely, you know, aren't we proud, Yeah, we're proud, but we also don't understand that it's such hard work for them. And then just being like on in the spotlight all the time. I have to agree with you, k that I enjoyed her spotlight way more than I did. Yeah, And I was like, you're not

going to this event like that? Why you could be one? You could be doing still like that that we need to go ahead, like you cant the carpet. Come on, let's go. You got Mike, We'll hook up and go on the red carpet together, Miss kay. Can we talk about the three times to man? Yeah, please explain that I've been married four times, but four different men. She's

been married to the same man. Oh lord, that'd be a hard adjustment at least getting into his mother, let his father boss her around, tell her what to do, how to vote. Uh no, it was awful, and he wanted me to be that way. And I'm a Yankee. I'm from Jersey and uh he's he's from this New Orleans. And it was just too much for me. And so when he started trying to change me, um, I got mad and I left. Then the next time was the

same thing. We did have a spirited married Jess. But the third time we got married, it was when we had Matthew. We would fight. It doesn't go up, army. You don't have to good up years, you know, And

so I would do that. Yes, I I was pretty feightty, yes, but you know, one I have to say that there had to have been a lot of love between the two of you too, have gone through those breakups coming back together to get married three because, let me tell you, gave me over here was like, if I'm gonna get divorce and find me a new one. I never really had the desire to go back to a husband that I had divorced. Yeah, well, I have to say that I never stopped loving him. No and so and you

don't only died, don't you. My husband died making up to me, right. And I remember saying, you know when you when he fell back, I said, worked him out, a big boy, I wear you out. And here's no response, no response, and I'm thinking, oh my god, something's wrong. So I run across the street to my dry brew and my neighbor, and I said, something's wrong. Something's wrong. I don't know what it is. And I had no idea that it was too much. It's hard to stop. You know. We had a party for him, kind of

a celebration of his life. Yeah, and I said, hey, well, I'm telling you how he talks to my own son, but to some a bitches, I can give ten years your life to go the way my pop did. I just love you. I think you're a joy. I just want to have your spunk and your and your everything, your fire. Well, you girls are all beautiful, my gosh, and you don't age mom. Thank you. I've been hearing that all my life. I told her, she gave me some of that. You've got good genes. You're fine, I hope, so,

I hope. So bye, thank you, thank you. I love her. She's Fantasticory, I got a couple of words in there. You did get a couple of words in them, Matthew parlaid on the back end of that beautiful freight chain. Yes, now you were raised with brothers. But now so you have two boys and and a daughter. How is it different raising your daughter than it is raising your Son's good question? And I'm still finding that out. Mind your mind. Her twelve in and seven, so we haven't hit those

wonderful teen years. Good look, Matthew. From me, bro, there is a different I mean, I'm still learning the different ways of having a daughter is having sons. My daughter's ten. But she has a way that the other that the boys don't. I don't know how much of her way or how much how much of it's just a female way. I don't have to explain. She'll get it. She'll come up to me and talk to me and put a hand on me or and on my back, or ask me a question, and she's talking to me about how

I feel. And I didn't have to say a word. The wonderful good luck charm for me, just one little tidbit right now, because this does have to do with father daughter love across space and time and dimensions. Interstellar changed my life forever. I just have to say it. After I watched it, I started studying physics. I've been studying physics for about five years now and it is one of the deepest loves of my life. And that movie sparked it. So I just want to say thank

you for that. Thank you, happy for that. Yeah, we're bringing that daughter to physics. We gotta talk to you just a little bit about your beautiful wife and what it was about her that you knew that she was the one. Matthew met Brazilian model Camilla Alvez in two thousand and six. Two kids and six years later, Matthew proposed on Christmas Day. The gorgeous couple was married on June night, two thousand and twelve in Austin, Texas, just months before Camilla gave birth to their youngest son. I'm

not a club guy. On this particular night, I was a club guy. I'm sitting at a at a club on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, healthily single, and I'm holding court at this table maker Margarite is and this figure about twenty ft in front of me, moving from my right to left, this caramel shoulders and the soft turquoise sort of silk dress hanging off of it. Without even thinking about it, I didn't say who is that? I said, what is that? Okay? And then as she went and

sat down my hands raised. I'm trying to get her attention. And as I'm getting her attention with trying to get attention with my right hand, I hear my mother's voice in this year, going, boy, get your ass up. This is not the kind of woman you wave across the room. Yes, ma'am, I'm going right. So I got up, went over. The music was playing. I spoke better Portuguese and Spanish that night than I ever have since I fortunate. I asked her or she wanted to come back to the house

to have some drinks with me and my friends. She said, no, I can't do that, but thanks for the invite. I walked her out to her car and caught a green light. You know what that green light was? Her car had been towed. That's right, that's my goodness. So now, um, you know, come on back and have a drink with me and friends. Okay, we go back, we all stay up a while. Um, I give you the guest bedroom at the end of the hallway, and I go to my bedroom. I snuck down to that room twice that night.

I got kicked out very clearly both times. Now we get to another beautiful moment, which was something I went and went and started going wow. The next morning, I'm the last one up. Two friends had stayed over, and Camilla had stayed over. I'm coming down the stairs and I hear this laughter, the kind of laughter in conversation where people overlap where they've known each other for a

long time time. They're finishing each other's sentences. And I see that same turquoise dress in the same caramel shoulders, sitting at the kitchen bar back here, my two friends on the other side, shirtless in the morning, and our housekeeper ishing out pancakes, and Camilla was holding court with housekeeper.

She just met that morning and my two friends that she had only met for an hour the night before, and I was like, oh, the constitution of this woman the next morning in the same dress, none of this adolescent walk a shame bs. No, I know what decision I made. I stayed here. I slept in the bedroom down there. I have my dress on from last night. That's what I have, and I'm gonna stay here and enjoyed this breakfast. Now I'm going to give her a ride home. I asked her out that night. She gives

me another great reason. What's the best reason this woman won't go out with me tonight? It's her dad's birthday. There we go. Family first, you damn right, lineage history, respect, Here we go. So I got her number, come in for a kiss on the cheek. I turned my head, caught about a quarter of child up, the kissed goodbye. Three nights later she came over and we had dinner at my house. And that's the only only woman I've learned to date since. And uh, here we are, Matthew,

thank you for that. What of the beautiful love story? And that's a love story from a man? I know that's a man love story, right, there. All right, That ain't a little boy right there? In your book, you wrote about a woman named Tammy who opened your eyes to different cultures. In college, Matthew was a waiter at the original Catfish Station in All Black Blues Bar in Austin, Texas.

Tammy was the black and beautiful as midnight rockstar waitress who ran the floor and had every single dude in the joint thinking they had a chance, just so they tipped more. None of them did have a chance, that is me included. So all right, Matthew, we have the little surprise for you. You haven't seen her in thirty five years, but we tracked her down and she's a little something to say to you. You got me acting all up. You know, we're supposed to be grown an

adult like you know thirty years ago. How are you doing? Wonderful? Look at you? You doing good too? There we are there, we are the station, right, cat Fig Station. Oh gosh, this is awesome. Let me tell everyone a story about Ms Tammy. Here she's running the floor at the cat Fish Station and the client tells about what male something like that. Well, when this guy comes in to say I want to be a waiter here tam was like, uh huh, well she teached me the ropes. She also

lets me know these are my key tables. Don't even think about serving them, mind you. All that kientele they wanted Tammy servant, all right, So you beat me in tips every single time. One time I made you sweat though you got seventy six. I got seventy two. I love that. Yeah. And you had a little fan club too though, you know that, right, He took a couple of years to work up my fan company. And the floor well, you know you had the butt going on.

You know, you had the butt thing going on. So that's that's that's what that's what you're the ladies in there. He's not telling you all the whole truth. Dr Tammy with the truth because you know, Matthew, you can call her Dr Tammy because she is a professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston and a visiting scholar at Rutgers University. Yes, Dr Tammy, Yes, yes, I love that. During the pandemic, you know, that was really sort of a pivotal moment for me in terms of my personal

green light. Right, Um, I left a career for thirteen years. I became a doctor. Right. I actually finished my coursework in my dissertation and got my doctorate. You know, Matthew was not afraid to pivot. And that's really my lesson learned from you. Matthew. You taught me just to kind of take those yellow lights, those red lights and turn them into green lights. And so that's where I am. Look at you were a bright light of my past,

and it's so good to see again. Tammy. You didn't even know you were in the book until the producers told you. Oh my gosh, no, I was like, what I mean, that was a couple of weeks ago, and uh, I thought it was a little spam with the way they reached out to me. But when I read it, I'm like, okay, okay, and I am flattered, flattered that So I'm proud of you. I'm marveling. I mean, we

really have grown up. So just to see him, you know, in this in this way, he's a family man, you know, because I knew when he was single, right, so family man tried. I tried. Everybody I tried would let me get close. Now I tried. I love it, Dammy, thank you for joining us. We just thought this would be a beautiful surprise for you, beautiful surprise for surprised. This is my day was already going good. Now it's going great, Damny,

Love you girl, Bye bye. This was a beautiful year. Yes, thank you so much your next time and quite enjoyed that. Thanks for watching Interstellar and getting into physics. Well, yes, it's gonna stay with me forever. We just love your book green Lights. We are so happy for your success, and we just continue to love you and think that you're amazing. Yeah, and for all the green lights to come your way, Matthew. Ladies, thank you. She kept the platonic to join the Red Table Talk family and become

a part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.