Matthew McConaughey says he had no intention of letting his future relationships affect his experience of being molested and blackmailed into having sex when he was a teenager.
“I’m not going to be afraid of relationships, because my first experience was blackmail. uhh. That’s an aberration,” the 52-year-old actor said during a conversation with Amanda de Cadenet on the podcast “Conversation: About the Men.”
“And I won’t let it beat me… I won’t let that defeat my trust in people and say, ‘No, I can have a healthy relationship.’ Non-negotiable. No.”
McConaughey – who has been married to Brazilian model Camila Alves since 2012 – noted that he never entered therapy after the traumatic experiences, which he said happened on two separate occasions.
The “Dallas Buyers Club” star first described the alleged incidents in his 2020 memoir, “Greenlights.”
“I was blackmailed into having sex for the first time when I was 15,” he wrote. “[I was] abused by a man when I was eighteen while I was knocked unconscious in the back of a van.”
Reflecting further during the podcast episode, McConaughey admitted that he didn’t make a connection between the two cases of abuse until later in life.
“I didn’t connect them,” he said. ‘Shall I wear that? I chose it, non-negotiable, I’m not going to carry that, take that baggage into the life I’m going to lead, and how I treat people and how I trust people, and how I look at circumstances and the risk I can take.”
McConaughey went on to share how receiving support from others helped him heal and eventually move on.
“I’ve had very good friends. I’ve had good mentors,” he explained.
“I’ve had older men, older women, married couples who have made it happen — from celebrating 50th anniversaries, who have taken the time to sit with me.”