Whoever thought anything as gooey and gelatinous as a placenta would become so hip in Hollywood? I’m telling you, it is the foetomaternal organ of choice for celebrities these days. A few years ago there was that whole “I swear I was joking incident” when Tom Cruise said he was going to eat Suri’s placenta. Which we all know was not a joke. Although I still think it was rude of Tom not to offer it to Suri. It was her placenta after all.

Now Matthew McConaughey has jumped on the celebrity placenta bandwagon. Actually since there’s only two celebs involved, I think it’s more like a tandem bike at this point. So Matthew has taken up the seat right behind Tom Cruise and decided to go indigenous on son Levi’s placenta. He’s going to bury it underneath a fruit tree.

Matthew McConaughey is giving new meaning to the term “fruit of one’s loins.”

The quirky hunk has saved the placenta from the birth of his son, Levi, and he says he’s going to plant that membranous fetal envelope in his yard, according to McConaughey’s recent interview with CNN’s House Call With Dr. Sanjay Gupta, which will be televised in two parts Aug. 9 and Aug. 16.

“It’s going to be in the orchards, and it’s going to bear some wonderful fruit,” the actor said, per a transcript of the very informative sit-down. “When I was in Australia, they had a placenta tree that was on the river…and all the placentas of all that tribe, all that clan, whatever aboriginal tribe that was, all the placentas went under that one tree and it was this huge behemoth of just health and strength.

“This tree was just growing taller and stronger above the rest of Mother Nature around it. It was gorgeous.” Beautiful sentiment, yes. Tribal and earthy and natural, yes. But we still recommend taking a pass on the fruit salad when you’re partying at McConaughey’s house.

[From E! News]

This is actually not that uncommon. I spent a little time on Wikipedia and Googled “afterbirth” (by the way, never do that and click the “images” button; those pictures will stay with you for a long, long time); and it turns out all sorts of cultures do interesting and useful things with placentas.

The Māori of New Zealand traditionally bury the placenta from a newborn child to emphasize the relationship between humans and the earth… The Kwakiutl of British Columbia bury girls’ placentas to give the girl skill in digging clams, and expose boys’ placentas to ravens to encourage future prophetic visions… Nepalese think of the placenta as a friend of the baby’s; Malaysian Orang Asli regard it as the baby’s older sibling. The Ibo of Nigeria consider the placenta the deceased twin of the baby, and conduct full funeral rites for it. Native Hawaiians believe that the placenta is a part of the baby, and traditionally plant it with a tree which can then grow alongside the child.

[From Wikipedia]

So everything considered, Matthew and Camila planting Levi’s placenta actually has a long and interesting – and some might say beautiful – history to it. And they haven’t made any threats of consuming it. Which, I found out, would be called “placentophagy,” if they actually pulled a Tom Cruise. Wikipedia is absolutely fabulous.

Thanks to OK! for these photos, where there are many more.