Why Matthew McConaughey quit smoking weed because of a Janet Jackson song: ‘Still like the tune’

Wesley StenzelSat, August 15, 2026 at 6:50 PM UTC

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Matthew McConaughey; Janet JacksonCredit: Rodin Eckenroth/Getty; Gilbert Flores/Variety via GettyKey points -

Matthew McConaughey was a big fan of Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes.”

The Interstellar star had an unusual experience with the song after smoking a particularly potent joint.

McConaughey quit his weed habit after a hilarious moment involving the song.

Matthew McConaughey stopped smoking marijuana after a wild experience with a Janet Jackson song.

The Interstellar star reflected on songs that have had consequential importance to him throughout his life in a video interview with Rolling Stone, and shared how Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” fundamentally changed his behavior.

“What a cool, groovy little tune,” he said. “It’s also the reason I quit smoking weed.”

McConaughey explained that his anecdote involving the song occurred “right around the time weed started turning hydroponic,” which made the drug more potent in his experience. “A lot of y’all don’t remember, but weed used to be: you could roll a joint, smoke it, pass it around, everyone giggles, gets the munchies, and maybe runs off and tries to get some snuggle time,” he reflected. “Well then it started getting this hydroponic stuff where one toke, the subplots could become unmanageable, and people would implode.”

Matthew McConaughey in London on Oct. 3, 2025Credit: Dave Benett/Getty

The Dallas Buyers Club actor said that he was going to his own birthday party on the night in question. “We’d taken over the club for my birthday party. I’m gonna drive myself,” he said. “Before I go, my buddy hands me this joint, he goes, ‘Here, man. Have some of this, super fun.’ I get there, and I take the toke in the car. It was not like the weed I’d smoked before.”

The weed had a surprising effect on him. “I listened to Janet Jackson’s ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ 24 times in a row,” he remembered. “And when I finally got out of the car to go into my birthday party, no one was in there, ‘cause it was over. They’d all left.”

McConaughey added, “I sat in the frickin’ car listening to ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ 24 times because I thought, at the time, that that was more important than going to my own birthday party. Love the song, didn’t love the weed.”

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He clarified that he feels warmly toward the song. “Still like the tune, though.”

McConaughey plays a musician-slash-beekeeper in his new film The Rivals of Amziah King. Music plays an important role in all of McConaughey’s performances.

“I just start making an album of what I’m hearing that I like a lot, because I’m already starting to listen through the ears of the character, and I’ll put those playlists together,” he said of his preparation process. “I do that for everything.”

He started that process in his breakout movie. “I learned that in the coolest way with Richard Linklater on Dazed & Confused,” he said. “Rick’s first direction for everybody was he gave them a cassette and goes, ‘Hey, here’s what I think your character would be listening to.’ How badass is that? Oh, I’m gonna go drive around and listen to this cassette, and I’m doing homework.”

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McConaughey appreciates how a playlist or mixtape can subtly put an actor into the right headspace for a character. “It’s beautiful, because music doesn’t tell you what to do,” he explained. “No one likes to be told what to do. But you put ‘em in a place, you get a sense of space and place…it isn’t about making sense, it’s about knowing a rhythm.”

on Entertainment Weekly

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