To assume makes an ass out of you and me, but as sweeping generalisations go, this seems fairly uncontroversial: nobody likes hearing themselves being criticised. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule – no kink shaming here – but most people aren’t fans.

Which is why a recent admission from Matthew McConaughey is unusual. The Hollywood actor revealed that he once spent two days in the desert reading 20 years’ worth of negative reviews about himself.

I love everything about this. Each detail is perfect: the setting, the duration of the pursuit and the period spanned by the reviews, the narcissistic/anti-narcissistic intent, the ridiculousness, the pretension, the commitment.

“I read every one,” McConaughey said on the podcast Build or Break, while wearing tinted sunglasses inside and the sort of hat last seen on The Only Way Is Essex. “I sat with them – I spent two days looking. It was hard.”

The mental image this conjures up is a gift – nay, payback. This is why McConaughey is paid the big bucks; why, as the world burns, we need celebrities more than ever. Thinking about a 56-year-old tortured artist-millionaire, hunkered down in a barren landscape, nobly forcing himself to pore over his harshest critiques, is a wonderful distraction from proper news. It’s like a ludicrous minibreak from reality.

There are a few gaps we’ll have to fill in ourselves. When McConaughey says he “collected 20 years” of slatings and “went away to the desert for a weekend and took them all in this thick book”, do we imagine him sitting by the printer with his Pritt Stick, constructing his burn book with his own fair hands? Or is it more likely that this endeavour fell to an assistant in his employ? (In which case, talk about a fool’s errand.) Did McConaughey’s wife and kids join him on the multi-day desert jaunt and, if so, how was his 48-hour absence explained? “Sorry darling, Daddy can’t play Uno, he’s wallowing in painful self-reflection.”

In summary: this column will definitely not feature in any of his handmade tomes of the future. Ten out of 10, Mr McConaughey, no notes. And thank you.

Polly Hudson is a freelance writer

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Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt