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When we last checked in with the McConaughey family, they were funding a plane to bring emergency supplies to Maui and sharing more weird anecdotes about family matriarch Kay, who is known to be quite a, uh, character. I said at the time that I wondered if Camila’s story about the woman known as Ma Mac or Mama Kay was her lowkey way of getting a little overdue revenge. After learning that Kay lives with the McC family full-time, I stand by this theory. Ma Mac even works with Camila and argues politics with the rest of the fam.
Strictly speaking, Matthew McConaughey is a father of three. Ask the Oscar winner how many kids he and wife Camila Alves McConaughey have, however, and you’ll get a different response.
“We’ve got Levi (15), Vida (13) and Livingston (10) as our three children that Camila and I created and Camila bore,” he says in his trademark Texas drawl. “But we’ve got four children in the house — and one of ’em is 91. That’s Mama Kay. That’s my mom.”
For the past four years, McConaughey’s mother has been living with the Dazed and Confused star — who goes by “Papai,” the Portuguese word for “dad,” in a nod to Camila’s Brazilian roots — and his family. (“And I suppose she’s gonna be with us ’til she moves on from this life,” he muses.) The experience, he says, has been “really wonderful,” with Camila involving her mother-in-law in her work and online content. That’s helped the McConaughey matriarch feel “needed” and “in the game a little bit.” Her grandchildren, meanwhile, are getting a “wonderful, wonderful, wonderful lesson” about the importance of taking care of your elders.
“They’ve got their grandmother living in the house. And they’ve got their own relationships each with her; they have their own arguments each with her,” he says. “Her politics can be different than ours, and we all just discuss it and have it out loud. …. It’s fun.”
I searched around a little bit and as far as I could tell, McConaughey has never outwardly identified as a member of either party, although he did flirt with the idea of running for Texas governor a few years ago. He’s from Texas and has been rumored to lean Republican. He’s against vaccine mandates, but after the inexcusable tragedy in Uvalde, he was very vocal in support of gun control legislation. I don’t know if he’s referring to a difference in politics between his family and his mom, a threeway difference of opinions between each generation of McCs, or if they’re all Republicans and the McConaughey Five want gun control and peaceful transfers of power while Mama Kay has a 2nd Amendment tattoo and makes monthly donations to the Trump campaign. Maybe his kids campaigned for Beto and have brought MM and Camila to the good side. I don’t know. Since we do know MM’s politics on gun control, I’m going to run with that being one of the dinner table issues.
I’m a lone leftie in a big family and speaking from experience, if I’m arguing over whether or not America is going to continue to be a free-for-all, permitless hellscape which puts all of our lives, especially our children’s, in danger, I’m not fondly laughing about it. But that’s just me. Kudos to them if they find discussing politics in this day and age to be fun, I guess. They’re bigger people than I am.
It’s only “fun” if you’re rich, white or male enough for the realities not to impact you.
Guarantee it is not “fun” for Camila.
I cannot applaud this comment enough. Spot on!
Right? I saw a classic “just playing devil’s advocate” on a thread the other day, and I had to remove myself. I don’t bother anymore trying to explain to white men why that’s not an equal playing field.
Great comment.
Or possibly she’s the lone leftie in a house of Texas style republicans? I’ll say this. If grandma is 90, I got some new life goals. I’m still losing the pandemic weight, but dayum if I don’t wanna be rockin’ a dress like that at 90. The kids are absolutely gorgeous too, but the oldest one does not look 15. Are these older photos?
It says 2019 in the background so looks like the photo of the children is old.
LMAO! It says it right there in big bold letters. I’m on the west coast where it’s still early, and that’s the excuse I’m going with. 😉
Seriously. His mum is GORGEOUS. Wow.
Gah. The way he speaks just gives me ICK.
“….Camila and I created” “Camila bore…”
I actually like it. It’s factual. I can’t stand when hetero couples say “we are pregnant.” No. “We” are not pregnant. “We are having a baby?” Yes. “I am pregnant with our child?” Yes. “We are pregnant?” No. Never heard it stated the way MM has, and I think it would maybe sound a little awkward in regular conversation, but in print or interview I like it.
@Kimmy: yes, I definitely made a face when I read that. There are dozens of other ways to say “we have three children” that doesn’t make their mother sound like a farm animal.
Leftie or not, all my simpathies to Camila.
Sigh. Elder care is such a nightmare in this country, that if you had the space, and can do it, this is the best way to ensure your person is going to be looked after. We’re in the thick of it here, and it’s SO SO difficult.
And yeah, there are going to be disagreements, and yeah, they get more and more like a problem child all the time.
My mother was a nightmare, and I’m just glad she had a talent for finding people willing to put up with her, and take care of her, because it was ugly those last few years. His parents are more capable, but even so, one fall and his mother went into a downward spiral caused by overworked hospitals absolutely not giving a shit about an older woman who went into surgery with all her faculties and who came out not knowing who she was.
Keeping them safe, fed, interested (grandkids help!) and safe … no matter how much money you have, it’s a challenge.
“But we’ve got four children in the house — and one of ’em is 91. That’s Mama Kay. That’s my mom.”
That’s an easy way to say my mama is a bigot but hey, If Camila as a black woman can handle it then kudos to her.
If the family were cash-strapped and had their SNAP benefits cut or were smothering under medical bills, I doubt the dinner debates would be so enjoyable. I deeply appreciate his sanity around gun control, but, overall, he comes off as so smug and overprivileged to me. A touch of genuine humility is such a beautiful thing, and I’ve never seen evidence of that in him. I’d love to be wrong.
And if he and wife were in a small house they could barely afford even working two jobs, with no space for privacy or just to take a break, I bet he wouldn’t find this so funneee…
All I’ve got is that Camila is a saint (she puts up with both of them!) and I hope she gets unlimited privilege to grab her car keys and announce that she is going “out!” with nobody tagging along and no itinerary/expected return time. I would lose my mind.
I liked him okay until he started word-salading about being governor (not withstanding that literally anyone, including a tree stump, would be better than Hot Wheels) but now I cannot with him. Shush, Matthew. Or as the youths put it, “say less.” A lot less.
Hot Wheels? I loathe Abbott greatly, but can we not be ableist? Signed, a disabled person.
Nope. Fuck no! This is why I’m panicking once a month about making a plan for our kids so they don’t have to care for us as we age. I’ve seen what that does to families. And I don’t want that burden from my own parents and definitely not my in laws. FUCK THAT, I say!
I was the lone Democrat in a family of conservative Republicans for a long time decades ago. Most have since seen the light, but that was mostly due to events, not me. And I can state unequivocally that arguing with them was never fun, especially since I was badly outnumbered.
In addition to being mega gorgeous, she is a apparently a saint too. I could NEVER have that woman living in my home for life. Never. It’s a deal breaker for me.