In his new memoir “Greenlights,” the Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey opens up about the violent home that he was raised in as a child. In a new interview with actress Jada Pinkett Smith, however, he explained why he never judged his parents for raising him in a home that was so full of violence.

McConaughey revealed in his book that his parents physically fought one another often while he was growing up.

“Dad flipped the dining room table into the ceiling, got up, and began to stalk Mom,” the Oscar-winning actor wrote. “She ran to the telephone to dial 9-1-1. As he closed in, Mom grabbed the handheld end of the phone off the wall mount and raked it across his brow. Dad’s nose was broken; blood was everywhere. Mom ran to the cabinet, pulled out a 12-inch chef’s knife, and said, ‘C’mon fat man, I’ll cut you from your nuts to your gulliver.’”

McConaughey, who was only 5 years-old at the time of this fight, wrote that just minutes later, his parents made love on the kitchen floor. He went on to write about getting numerous “butt whoopings” from his parents as well as her volatile interactions that they had, but he does not judge them for it now.

“I never got injured, but I do remember the values that were instilled in me from the butt whoopings,” McConaughey said while appearing on Smith’s internet show “Red Table Talk.” “I got my first one for not answering to my name. I got my second one for saying the words, ‘I can’t,’ instead of saying, ‘I’m having trouble.’ I got my third butt whooping for lying and my fourth for saying, ‘I hate you’ to my brother. So what I remember is that those four times I got in trouble, I earned it.”

The 51 year-old actor believes that the way his parents raised him made him the man that he is today.

“I would even go so far as to say this: I remember one night I got in trouble from my dad for lying,” McConaughey said. “That broke his heart! That hurt him a whole lot more than that backhand hurt me. Like he wasn’t being a good enough dad…”

Join @McConaughey at the Red Table as he explains how his parents divorced twice but married three times because the love between them had a way of always winning. STREAMING NOW!❣️ #greenlightsbook @RedTableTalk pic.twitter.com/3B91eO0oqo

— Jada Pinkett Smith (@jadapsmith) November 18, 2020

Though McConaughey does not judge his parents, he’s decided to raise his three children much differently, as he does not even raise his voice in his home.

“My threshold for like, whoa and I catch myself, is if I even raise my voice in my household,” McConaughey said. “I immediately have an alarm that goes off and says, ‘Alright, McConaughey. What did you not handle getting to this point that you had to raise your voice?’”

While McConaughey doesn’t judge his mom and dad, he was determined to break the cycle of violence in his family when it came to raising his own kids. It looks like he’s succeeded in doing just that!