Camila Alves had a "tricky" relationship with her mother-in-law Mary Kathlene 'Kay' McCabe, when she first started dating Matthew McConaughey.
'She would call me by all of Matthew's ex-girlfriends' names': Camila Alves' details tricky relationship with mother-in-law
The 41-year-old model - who started dating the actor in 2006 and tied the knot with him in 2012 - revealed her mother-in-law, now 91, was not very welcoming when they first met and even used to call her by Matthew's ex-girlfriend's names.
Speaking on Southern Living's 'Biscuits Jam' podcast, Camila explained: "She did all these things when I first came in the picture, right? She was really testing me. I mean, really testing me.
"She would call me by all of Matthew's ex-girlfriends' names, she would start speaking Spanish with me in a very broken way, kind of putting [me] down a bit. I mean, all kinds of stuff."
However, Camila - who has children Levi, 15, Vida, 13, and Livingston, 10 - with Matthew revealed their relationship changed when she offered her mother-in-law a free first-class ticket to Istanbul after she landed a modelling job in Turkey and finally stood up for herself on the trip.
She said: "[I told her] 'Ma Mac, you're gonna come with me. The whole way there, the whole plane ride to Istanbul, she was telling me all these stories and putting all these things in my head.
"When we landed, I was like, 'Okay, all right. Let me buckle up. Let me get ready for this situation.'
"About day three, I was taking her to her room, and she got into this whole other thing that it's not my place to share, and she starts crying, and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh! Ma Mac!' and feeling so sorry. And as I put her to bed, I look at her and I'm like, 'Oh my gosh. She's full of s***.'
"So I just [flipped] it on her and brought my spicy Brazilian, Latin side, and I let her have it. So I went back at her, and we had it back and forth, back and forth.
"She just looked at me and she was like, 'Okay. Now you're in'. All she wanted was for me to fight back.
"From that day on, that night on, we have the most amazing relationship, and I have so much respect for her.
"She has so much respect for me, it can get tricky sometimes. We always end with a good laugh and a joke."
Meanwhile, Matthew revealed in 2020 that he stopped speaking to his mother for eight years after she continually leaked their private conversations to the press.
He told 'The Howard Stern Show': "I would have conversations and then all of a sudden—whoop—what we’d talk about would end up in the paper three days later.
"It was tough for eight years, but we went through it and we're on the other side of it. It's good."
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