Matthew McConaughey was showing off his gold initial ring Friday afternoon. And it has quite the origin story.
McConaughey explained it all in a short video clip he posted to Instagram. He chatted about the ring he wears on the middle finger of his left hand, the one that has M for both his names. After all, Matthew McConaughey is a double M kind of guy.
He captioned the video “worth more than gold.” Then he explained why. The ring belonged to his dad, James Donald McConaughey. Friends called him Jim. His father, who played football in college and made money in oil piping supply, used the gold from his high school class ring for his new piece of jewelry. Matthew said his mother’s class ring and the gold from her fillings also was used for the initial piece of jewelry.
Then when Jim passed on in 1992, he left the ring to his youngest son. If you know your Matthew McConaughey history, the Texan was just beginning his acting career when his dad died. That’s the same year McConaughey appeared in the Trisha Yearwood video “Walk Away Joe.” And he also made his first TV appearance with an episode of Unsolved Mysteries.
Parents Gave Matthew McConaughey a Ton of Content for His Book
Matthew McConaughey wrote extensively about both his parents in his book, Green Lights. Jim and Kay had a complicated relationship. How so? They were married three times, with two divorces in between. So there was enough content there to inspire a lot of words. Kay is 89. She and her son were estranged for about eight years, starting about 1996.
McConaughey said his dad died exactly how he wanted to go. That’s a far more bizarre story than the initial ring. Outsiders, read on, but this back story might make you blush.
Matthew McConaughey wrote about how he learned of his dad’s death. “I got a call from my Mom. (She said) ‘Your dad died,’” McConaughey wrote in his book. “My knees buckled. I couldn’t believe it. He was my dad. Nobody or nothing could kill him. Except for mom. He’d always told me and my brothers, ‘Boys, when I go, I’m gonna be makin’ love to your mother.’
“And that’s what happened. He had a heart attack when he climaxed.”
But McConaughey talked about his parents last year in a People magazine cover story to promote the book. He said that for all the arguing his parents did, “those moments were so quickly superseded by the love and humanity.”
McConaughey continued, “They were, at times, violent. As I say in the book, that is how they communicated. They were divorced twice, married three times, I mean, yeah, it was like the Pacific Ocean in a storm.”
McConaughey is the married father of three. Unlike his parents, he and wife Camila Alves have only needed to say their vows one time.
