Matthew McConaughey Opens Up About Being Blackmailed & Molested As A Teenager
He had it pretty rough.
Featureflash Photo Agency / Shutterstock Matthew McConaughey is getting candid about surviving sexual assault as a teenager.
During Amanda de Cadenet’s podcast on September 18, 2022, titled “The Conversation: About the Men,” the 52-year-old actor opened up about his troubled past as a teenager.
After being taught the importance of intimacy in relationships by his father, he vowed that he would never let his past experiences get in the way of his future romances.
Matthew McConaughey said he wouldn’t let being molested and blackmailed for sex “beat” him.
Having written about it in his 2021 autobiography, “Greenlights,” the “Dallas Buyers Club” actor decided that he would give more detail into his past and some of the troubling experiences that he refuses to let define him.
When he was 15 years old, McConaughey was blackmailed into losing his virginity.
“At the time, I was sure I was going to hell for the premarital sex,” McConaughey revealed in an interview with Graham Bensinger. “But now I’m merely sure that I hope that’s not the case.”
He expressed that sometimes he wishes he had called the blackmailer's bluff, admitting that oftentimes, it’s not worth it.
When he was 18 years old, he was attacked “in the back of a van” by an older, male assailant.
McConaughey wrote that he was “knocked unconscious” and was molested by the man, but was able to regain consciousness and fight his way out of the situation before it got any worse.
“I'm not gonna be afraid of relationships because my first experience was blackmail. Uh uh. That's an aberration. No, no. That's not the way it is,” he told Cadenet.
“And if I go on - and I'm not gonna let it beat me. I'm going, 'I'm not gonna let that beat my sense of trust in people and say, 'No, I can have a healthy relationship.’ Non-negotiable. No.”
Matthew McConaughey says his dad taught him the importance of consent from a young age.
“Well, I had been taught, been guided by my parents about respect for a woman, respect for the relationship, respect for sexual intimacy, respect for space,” he said.
He expanded on what his dad, specifically, taught him about respecting women.
“And so he goes, and he's talking to me, he says, ‘Son, as a male in the situation,’ speaking to me about a heterosexual relationship, ‘If you ever feel the girl, the female, hesitate, stop,’” McConaughey explained.
Thanks to his father’s advice, he said that he was still able to have some “healthy sexual relations” with women that weren’t “ugly” after the sexual abuse he experienced.
“After that, I got to have some healthy sexual relations and have girls that I liked and liked me, and we slowly got intimate and it was beautiful and clumsy, and all those things, but it wasn't ugly like that was,” he said, referring to the blackmailing.
It really seems to have worked considering McConaughey is still happily married to his wife of 10 years, Brazilian model Camila Alves, with whom he shares three children.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.