Camila Alves McConaughey Recalls Mother-in-Law ‘Really Testing Me’

Camila Alves McConaughey is recalling how she won over her mother-in-law Kay McConaughey.

As the entrepreneur, 41, appeared on Southern Living‘s Biscuits & Jam podcast, she said husband Matthew McConaughey‘s mother, whom the family calls “Ma Mac,” took to messing with her when she first began dating the Interstellar actor.

“She did all these things when I first came in the picture. She was really testing me. I mean really testing me,” Camila, who met McConaughey in 2006, said. “She would call me by all of Matthew’s ex-girlfriend’s names, she would start speaking Spanish with me in a very broken way, kind of putting down a bit, all kinds of stuff.”

Camila, who founded the lifestyle destination Women of Today, then recalled bringing Kay with her on a trip to Istanbul, Turkey, for a fashion show during which she and her mother-in-law shared a bonding moment that changed their relationship for the better.

“I was taking her to her room and she got into this whole other thing that is not my place to share, and she starts crying. I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, Ma Mac,’ 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—,’ ” Camila said on the podcast.

Camila said she decided to “flip it on her and brought my spicy Brazilian Latin side and I let her have it” during the encounter, and by the end of the conversation, she said, Kay’s attitude changed.

“At the end she just looks at me and she was like, ‘Okay, now you’re in.’ All she wanted was for me to fight back, and from that day on, that night on, we have the most amazing relationship,” she said. “I have so much respect for her, she has so much respect for me. It can get tricky sometimes, but we always end with a good laugh.”

Camila, who shares three children with Matthew, said her husband is to his mother, whom she identified as “very organized, very minimalistic, very on time, very prepared.”

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“They’re very similar in a lot of ways: she’s very organized,” she shared. “A lot of people have this — well, I don’t think people actually have this image of Matthew anymore because, just the kind of work and things he’s been doing — but when we first start dating, it was this image of Matthew of getting high, laid back, no shirt, whatever. Which I’m like, ‘The guy doesn’t even smoke. What is this vision coming from?’ “