Matthew McConaughey has apparently discovered the outer limit of how many consecutive plays of Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” one man can handle before reevaluating his relationship with weed.
For him, that number is 24.
In a new Rolling Stone interview about the music that has shaped the soundtrack of his life, McConaughey revisited the unusual story behind why he stopped smoking weed: one particularly strong joint, one parked car, one Janet Jackson song, and an entire birthday party unfolding without the guest of honor.
According to the actor, the episode happened around the time the weed he encountered started to change.
“It’s right around the time weed started turning hydroponic. A lot of y’all don’t remember,” he said.
McConaughey contrasted it with the weed he remembered from earlier years, when, as he put it, “you could roll a joint, smoke it, pass around, everyone giggles, gets some munchies, and maybe runs off and tries to get some snuggle time.”
Then, he said, things started hitting differently.
“Well, then it started getting this hydroponic stuff where like one toke people, the subplots could become unmanageable and people would implode,” McConaughey recalled.
And on this particular night, he was heading to his own birthday party.
His friends had taken over a club for the occasion. Before McConaughey headed to the celebration, a friend handed him a joint and encouraged him to try it.
McConaughey drove to the venue, parked outside and took a hit.
“It was not like the weed I’d smoked before,” he said.
He had successfully completed the difficult part of the journey: arriving at his own birthday party. Getting out of the car proved considerably harder.
“I listened to Janet Jackson’s ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ 24 times in a row,” McConaughey said, “and when I finally got out of the car to go into my birthday party, no one was in there because it was over.”
Everyone had left.
“They had all left because I sat in the fricking car listening, listening to ‘That’s the Way Love Goes’ 24 times because I thought at the time that was more important than going to my own birthday party.”
It is difficult to imagine a cleaner review of an altered state than realizing, sometime after replay number 24, that Janet Jackson has somehow outranked your own birthday.
McConaughey’s verdict was equally straightforward.
“Loved the song, didn’t love the weed.”
Dedicated students of the Matthew McConaughey Extended Universe may remember hearing this story before.
When McConaughey appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in December 2025, he told essentially the same story, but with one notable difference: in that version, he said he had listened to “That’s the Way Love Goes” 34 times rather than 24.
He also included another detail in the earlier telling: he remembered sitting in his truck crying because the song felt so beautiful to him in the moment.
Cover photo: Rich Esteban, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons // AMFM STUDIOS LLC, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons // Edited with AI
