14 DAY TRIAL // Since cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted to Oprah to doping since the mid-‘90s at the end of last week, celebrities have been speaking out on the controversy. The latest to do so is Lance’s good friend and workout partner, actor Matthew McConaughey.
McConaughey was at Sundance over the weekend to promote a new film but, given the interest in Armstrong’s admission, he was asked questions about it as well.
Check out the video below to see what Matthew told MTV on the topic.
Even though they’re good friends, Matthew admits he had no idea that Lance had been using performance enhancing drugs all along. Neither was his place to know such things, he says.
Nevertheless, when he heard that Armstrong had confessed to Oprah, the star felt anger and then sadness, and only afterwards a sense of relief for him.
“My first reaction was I was [upset]. I was mad. I then got kind of sad for him. First off, I had a part of me that took it kind of personally, which I think a lot of people have,” the actor told MTV.
It was only afterwards, after the initial shock wore off, that he could see that Lance had no other choice but keep him – and all his other friends – in the dark about his huge secret.
“What I mean by this is, what was he supposed to do? Call me to the side and go, ‘Hey man, I did it but don't tell anybody.’ Then I would have really had a reason to be [upset] at him, going, ‘You want me to walk around holding this?’” the actor said.
At the end of the day, Matthew admits that, from a purely unselfish point of view, he’s happy for Lance that he’s finally found it in himself to speak out and reveal a secret that he’d been carrying with him for over a decade.
Yes, Matthew adds, things are only going to get worse before they get better, and Armstrong probably knows it as well.
“Where I am now is I've put myself out of the way and I am happy for this guy, who has now chosen to reenter this new chapter of his life a truly free man. And the weight he had on his shoulders, without the boogieman under the bed, the skeleton in the closet that he's carried for 14 years. Fourteen years he lied and carried the lie with him,” the actor says.