Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional moment at last week’s Emmys took an unexpected turn when Matthew McConaughey comforted him in the men’s room—just as Woody Harrelson emerged from a stall.
On Monday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel and Harrelson compared notes on the encounter, which began after Kimmel saw his longtime bandleader and childhood best friend, Cleto Escobedo, appear in the ceremony’s In Memoriam montage.
“I started getting choked up,” Kimmel recalled. He headed to the men’s room, where he found McConaughey standing at a urinal.
Kimmel said McConaughey noticed he was upset and asked if he was OK. After Kimmel explained what had happened, McConaughey turned and gave him a hug.
“He hugs me real, you know, very warmly,” Kimmel said.
That’s when Kimmel became aware of one important detail.
“I am hugging him for a little while, and I said, ‘Is your penis out?’”
According to Kimmel, McConaughey replied, “Yes, it is,” before joking, “In fact, I’m going to rub it up against you a little bit.”
“And at that moment,” Kimmel told Harrelson, “you came out of the stall.”
Kimmel then asked whether McConaughey had explained their interaction to Harrelson, “or were you just left with that in your head?”
“You know, I thought, okay,” Harrelson replied. “I never try to grade or to critique what other people are doing. And I figured you guys are—whatever your thing is.”
“I don’t want to be the guy to say, ‘No, not in the restroom at the Emmys,’” he added.
Harrelson then revealed that he had, in fact, overheard Kimmel tell McConaughey why he was upset. Afterward, the three men shared another hug in the hallway.
“That lightened the moment considerably,” Kimmel said. “And Cleto would have loved that very much.”
