Key Takeaways
- Jimmy Kimmel told Woody Harrelson on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" that Matthew McConaughey hugged him at a urinal after he stepped out of the Emmys upset over the In Memoriam tribute to Cleto Escobedo III.
- Kimmel had left the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards because the montage honoring Escobedo, his childhood best friend and Cletones bandleader who died Nov. 11 at 59, overwhelmed him.
- Woody Harrelson said he walked out of a stall mid-hug and chose not to comment, later joining Kimmel and McConaughey for a group hug in the hallway once he learned why Kimmel was upset.
- The story went viral after Variety posted the clip, with commenters questioning whether the bathroom encounter actually happened, and it doubled as promotion for Harrelson and McConaughey's Apple TV comedy "Brothers," premiering Sept. 23.
Jimmy Kimmel says Matthew McConaughey noticed he looked upset in the bathrooms during the Emmys this month and decided to comfort him, but without putting his penis away first.
On a recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Matthew McConaughey’s Brothers co-star Woody Harrelson sat down for an interview and admitted that he saw the whole thing go down. At around the two-minute mark of the interview, which can be seen in full above, Kimmel explained his side of the story. Kimmel shared that when the in memoriam montage was shown, he got emotional because his friend Cleto Escobedo III was featured in it. He decided to go to the bathroom at that moment because he was getting “choked up.”
“I go to the bathroom, washing my hands, and I notice next to me, right next to me, is Matthew McConaughey,” shared Kimmel. “He’s at the urinal, and I’m washing my hands, and I say, ‘Hey.’ And he sees that I’m upset, and he’s like, ‘Hey, you okay?’ I told him what happened, and he is at the urinal, and he turns to me, and he gives me a very nice hug. He hugs me very warmly, and I am hugging him for a little while, and I said, ‘Is your penis out?’ And he said, ‘Yes, it is. Yes, it is.’”
During the whole incident, McConaughey joked that he was going to “rub it against” Kimmel “a little bit,” and then Harrelson came out at that exact moment. “You came out of the stall and witnessed this happening,” Kimmel continued. “Did he explain our interaction or were you just left with that in your head?”
Harrelson joked that when he saw the moment going down, he didn’t want to get involved. “Okay, I mean, I never try to grade or critique what other people are doing,” joked Harrelson. “I don’t want to be the guy to say, ‘No, not in the restroom at the Emmys.’ No, but I did hear you say that, and then that’s why afterwards, we were out in the hall, and we all had a group hug.” Kimmel said that the whole interaction “lightened the moment considerably.”
McConaughey and Harrelson are set to star in the comedy series Brothers, in which they play themselves as they discover they might actually be related. The two actors co-created the series with David West Read and Lee Eisenberg. The show debuts on Apple TV on Wednesday (Sept. 23).