Matthew McConaughey reveals he was drugged and molested as a teen, but will not be beaten by it
AUSTIN, TEXAS: Matthew McConaughey recently opened up about being blackmailed into having sex as a teenager and then being drugged and molested by an older man at the age of 18.
Speaking on Amanda de Cadenet's 'The Conversation: About the Men' podcast, ‘The Dallas Buyers Club’ star, 52, was speaking about some heartbreaking parts of his life that he mentioned in his autobiography 'Greenlights'. The star spoke about a conversation he had with his father about how he should be treated.
ALSO READ
Matthew McConaughey SLAMMED after calling hometown school massacre an 'epidemic we can control'
Matthew McConaughey hailed for 'responsible gun ownership' plea, urges pols to act on gun control
McConaughey said in both horrific instances, he knew something was not right, because of the lessons about sex and intimacy that he received from his parents while growing up. "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," McConaughey said. He talked about how his father gave him his first lesson on consent "He told me, 'Son, as a male in the situation, if you ever feel the girl hesitate, stop.'"
"He even said this, he goes, 'You may even feel them hesitate, and then after you stop, they may go, oh, no, no, come on. Don't. Wait till next time.' And he was right, I got in certain senses where it was like, 'No, no, no. OK, I'm out.' And saying, 'OK, cool. I'm out.' The girl went, 'Oh, well, no, come on.' And I was like, 'No, no, no,'" he said, adding, "Trust you'll have another day if it is to be."
The actor said those lessons helped him a lot later on. He added that because of the lessons, he was able to sense that something was not right when he was blackmailed into having sex at the age of 15. "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 continued.
Just three years after this incident, McConaughey was drugged and molested by another man. In his book, he wrote about this incident and said “I was molested by a man when I was 18 while knocked unconscious in the back of a van." He added that he never connected this traumatic incident to the other incident.
The 'Gold' star didn’t take therapy as he had good mentors and friends who helped him rise above the trauma and shine again. "I've had very good friends. I've had good mentors," he said, adding, "I never quit believing in the things my mom and dad were teaching me in the middle of finding out, 'Oh, maybe they were hypocritical about what they were teaching and what they were actually doing,'" McConaughey also told Cadenet that he never let the trauma of these incidents affect his subsequent relationships.
"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. 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," he insisted.