2023 Mack, Jack & McConaughey Gala© GettyImages

Levi McConaughey hilariously trolls his dad Matthew for his 1999 arrest

One of the best celebrity arrest stories of all time


Jovita Trujillo - Los Angeles
Senior WriterLos Angeles
DECEMBER 22, 2023 4:59 PM EST

Levi McConaughey is proving to be hilarious. The fifteen-year-old shared a video on his Instagram finishing up some shopping, when he got to his dad, who he said is “kinda a hard guy to shop for.” “But I think I found something he might like,” he says positively.

Levi headed inside a Guitar Center to look at some instruments. After showing off his skills on a turn table, he finally found what he was looking for - a bongo. “We all know my dad loves a good bongo,” Levi says while testing it out. The teen is deadpan the entire video, which makes it seem sweet and earnest, but the teen is hilariously referencing Matthew’s 1999 arrest.

Matthew was famously arrested on Oct. 25, 1999, following a noise complaint. Officers entered his home and found him dancing naked with some bongo drums, marijuana, and a bong on the coffee table. He declared his innocence, resisted arrest, was taken to jail, and ultimately fined for a noise complaint.

He talked about the arrest in his memoir Greenlights. The actor had just watched his alma mater football team, the Texas Longhorns, win on Saturday and partied “through the night into Sunday and through Sunday night without sleeping a wink.”

He started to unwind around 2:30 am, by getting undressed, smoking, and opening the window, to listen to Henri Dikongué. “What I didn’t know was that while I was banging away in my bliss, two Austin policemen also thought it was time to barge into my house unannounced, wrestle me to the ground with nightsticks, handcuff me, and pin me to the floor,” the future Academy-Award winner wrote.

He refused to put on pants because he thought it was a sign that he was minding his business. The cops led him, still naked through the street, and he had a game plan. “My thinking was that in mid-flight, while upside down in the air, I would assume a pike position and then slide my cuffed wrists under my butt and up and over my legs, and then stick the landing,” he wrote.

The future father believed “pulling off such an extraordinary Houdini-like stunt, the officers would be so impressed they would abrogate the arrest and set me free.” He tried and ended up slammed to the ground in front of 40 neighbors.

When he arrived at the Austin Police Station, he finally accepted pants from a working inmate. “Trust me, you do wanna put these on,” he urged the actor.

McConaughey faced the judge a few hours later, who was confused by how a noise complaint had gotten that far, why officers forcible entered his home and ultimately dismissed the disturbing the peace and possession misdemeanors. His lawyer got the resisting arrest charge dismissed in place of a violation of a $50 sound ordinance citation. It was later expunged from his record.