Matthew McConaughey will speak at the University of Houston's commencement ceremony next month, a fact that is more controversial than you might imagine. And not because McConaughey is, say, underqualified for the job, but because the university refused, for more than a month, to tell the Houston Chronicle how much it would be paying the actor. But the paper finally got an answer: $135,000, which McConaughey will donate to a McConaughey-founded charity that aims to help high school students. The convoluted details of the brouhaha:
- UH first refused to give specifics because of a confidentiality clause in its agreement with the booking agency; that booking agency then fought the newspaper's FOIA request because the revelation might lead to "unfair negatives online."