Actor Matthew McConaughey recently shared some jaw-dropping news pertaining to his close friend Woody Harrelson and their family history.
In an interview with Let’s Talk Off Camera with Kelly Ripa podcast last week, the 53-year-old disclosed that the pair might be brothers after discovering that his mother, Mary McCabe, was physically intimate with Harrelson’s father, Charles Harrelson.
Charles Harrelson was a hitman that spent most of his life in prison for robbery and two separate murder charges. Charles passed away in jail in 2007 from a heart attack. During the discussion, McConaughey revealed that over the two decades he’s known Harrelson, there has always been “a murky line” among them. That “murky line” includes the men sharing a physical resemblance and McConaughey and Harrelson’s children acknowledging them as “uncles.” He said,
“Where I start and where [Woody] ends, and where he starts and I end, has always been like a murky line. And that’s part of our bromance, right? My kids call him Uncle Woody. His kids call me Uncle Matthew. And you see pictures of us and my family thinks a lot of pictures of him are me. His family thinks a lot of pictures of me are him.”
The Lincoln Lawyer star continued that he was only made aware of the possibility of him being related to Harrelson “a few years ago” after the pair and McConaughey’s mother, Mary McCabe, were in Greece. McConaughey recalled discussing his bond with Harrelson and their families as McCabe shared the shocking secret that she “knew” Charles.
“In Greece a few years ago, we’re sitting around talking about how close we are and our families. And my mom is there, and she says, ‘Woody, I knew your dad.’ Everyone was aware of the ellipses that my mom left after ‘knew.’ It was a loaded K-N-E-W.”
Immediately following the revelation, McConaughey stated that he and Harrelson tried to “unpack what this knew meant” and realized that around the time that his parents McCabe and James McConaughey, who passed away in 1992 from a heart attack, were going through their second divorce that Charles was on furlough. McConaughey added that what makes the evidence more damning is that he and the Zombieland star found more clues that possibly identified where McCabe and Charles could have had their “knew moment” in west Texas.
“We went on to unpack what this ‘knew’ meant and did some math and found out that [Woody’s] dad was on furlough at the same time that my mom and dad were in their second divorce. Then there’s possible receipts and places out in west Texas where there might have been a gathering, or a meeting, or a ‘knew’ moment.”
McConaughey would wrap up his statement by sharing that the only reason why they haven’t taken a DNA test to provide closure to their suspicions is because the father of three isn’t ready to come to grips with the fact that James, the man that raised him for practically his whole life, may not be his biological “dad.” He said,
“Look, it’s a little easier for Woody to say, ‘Come on, let’s do [DNA tests],’ because what’s the skin in it for him? It’s a little harder for me because he’s asking me to take a chance to go, ‘Wait a minute, you’re trying to tell me my dad may not be my dad after 53 years of believing that?’ I got a little more skin in the game.”
Despite McConaughey’s recent admissions, no additional details have been released to the public.