McConaughey and Camila married in June 2012, six years after they met at a Los Angeles nightclub.

It was the actor who had to do the convincing at first since Camila had repeatedly rejected him, but when they eventually got together, it was Camila who had to step up and show McConaughey’s mother, Mary Kathleen McCabe, that she was worthy.

During a recent visit to Matthew McConaughey’s wife, Camila, has opened up about the ‘tricky’ relationship with the actor’s mom over the years Southern Living’s Biscuits & Jam podcast, Camila remembered how McCabe, dubbed ‘Ma Mac, would do ‘all these things’ when she first arrived.

“She would call me by all of Matthew’s ex-girlfriends’ names, and she would start speaking Spanish with me in a very broken way, kind of putting me down a bit,” Camila, a Brazilian, explained. “I mean, all kinds of stuff.”

Camila later stated that McCabe was ‘trying’ her, adding, “I mean, really testing me.”

Camila, on the other hand, was not going anywhere, and after landing a modeling gig in Istanbul for which she had a free first-class ticket and a free stay at a luxury hotel, she asked McCabe to accompany her.

Camila remembers McCabe saying, “The whole way there, the whole plane ride to Istanbul, she was telling me all these stories and putting all these things in my head.”

Camila eventually realized she couldn’t handle it any longer.

“Enough of that; when we landed, I was like, ‘OK, all right.’ Allow me to fasten my seatbelt. “Please allow me to prepare for this situation,” she recalled.

“I was walking her to her room about day three, and she went into this whole other stuff that it’s not my place to disclose, and she begins weeping… ‘Oh my god!’ I exclaim, ‘Ma Mac!’ and feel terrible. And when I lay her down to sleep, I look at her and think, ‘Oh my god. ‘She’s a s**thead.'”

“I just flipped it on her and brought my spicy Brazilian, Latin side, and I let her have it,” Camila explained. So I retaliated, and we went back and forth, back and forth.

“She just looked at me and said, ‘Okay. ‘You’re in now.'”

“All she wanted was for me to fight back,” said Camila.

Camila described the couple’s connection as “the most amazing.”

“I have so much respect for her,” she continued. “She has a lot of respect for me.” I mean, it may be difficult at times, you know? But we always conclude on a high note with a good laugh and a joke.”

McConaughey and Camila have three children together after more than a decade of marriage: Levi, 15, Vida, 13, and Livingston, 10 years old.