Highlights
- Jimmy Kimmel broke down at the Emmys over late friend Cleto Escobedo III and retreated to the bathroom.
- Matthew McConaughey turned from the urinal to hug a crying Jimmy Kimmel without tucking himself away first.
- Woody Harrelson walked out of a stall mid-hug and later joined both stars for a clothed hallway embrace.
Leave it to Matthew McConaughey to turn Hollywood grief into an unhinged urinal bonding session.
During an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, host Jimmy Kimmel confessed to guest Woody Harrelson that an emotional breakdown during the Emmy Awards morphed into pure bathroom theatre.
Kimmel slipped away during the ceremony after the In Memoriam tribute broke him. The segment honored his childhood best friend and longtime bandleader Cleto Escobedo III.
“I started getting choked up. I go to the bathroom, washing my hands, and I notice next to me, right next to me, is Matthew McConaughey,” Kimmel revealed. “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?’”
Instead of zipping up as any mortal man would, McConaughey pivoted mid-stream into full southern healer mode.
“I told him what happened, and he is at the urinal, and he turns to me, and he gives me a very nice hug,” Kimmel said. “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.’”
McConaughey took the madness a step further. “And he says, ‘In fact, I’m going to rub it up against you a little bit,’” Kimmel remembered.
Right on cue, Harrelson walked straight out of a stall into the middle of the naked-hug tableau.
“I thought, okay, I never try to grade or critique what other people are doing,” Harrelson deadpanned on the broadcast. “I figured, you guys, whatever your thing is, I don’t want to be the guy to say, ‘No, not in the restroom at the Emmys.’”
Harrelson kept moving, though the three men eventually reconvened for a fully clothed group embrace outside.
“I did hear you say that, and that’s why afterwards, we were out in the hall, and we all had a group hug,” Harrelson explained.
Grief in Hollywood rarely follows an ordinary script, but McConaughey turning a porcelain receptacle into a venue for bare-naked empathy is a fresh frontier. Still, the bizarre moment managed to pierce the cloud of grief.
“I will tell you, that lightened the moment considerably,” Kimmel admitted. “Cleto would have loved that very much.”
