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Behind every great man is a great mom—and no one knows that more than Tropic Thunder star Matthew McConaughey, who appears to have chosen a perfectly lovely one to bear him a son, suitable for toting to red carpet events and John Mellencamp concerts in a Coleman beer cooler. But what of McConaughey himself? To whom can we attribute his uncompromisingly freewheeling spirit, his Southern sophistication, and, yes, his undeniable sexual ferocity? To put it a little more floridly: Who planted little Matthew's placenta beneath a tree, and tended to it lovingly until it bore fruit? We now have an answer:

In her new book, I Amaze Myself! (iamazemyself.com), Kay McConaughey dishes on everything from her son Matthew’s conception to how her husband died in a compromising position with her! “On Monday mornings, he and I often said goodbye by making love,” Kay says exclusively in the latest issue of Us Weekly. “But one day, all of a sudden, it just happened.

"I knew that something was wrong, because I didn’t hear anything from him. Just nothing," she says. "But it was just the best way to go!” "I knew that something was wrong, because I didn’t hear anything from him. Just nothing," she says. "But it was just the best way to go!” And when her man couldn’t be revived, she made sure he was taken from the house in the buff. “I was just so proud to show off my big old Jim McConaughey — and his gift,” she says.

Needless to say, Kay amazes us too. At last we have a clue as to where this former Sexiest Man Alive developed his taste for screwball, fuck-til-we-plotz comedy that has come to define the Matthew McConaughey sensibility. Having learned now of the bittersweet passing of his own father—who died, yes, but did it doing what he loves best—we think it may be time to revisit his entire romcom filmography again, whereupon frothy concoctions like Failure to Launch and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Lays will begin to take on all-new levels of deeply personal significance.