Rob McElhenney is used to playing a gay character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but he says in real life, he’s “always been part of the gay community” due to his family.
In a 2018 interview with Deadline, McElhenney was talking about an episode where his character Mac comes out to his dad through an interpretive dance. He brought up how when he was 8, his parents divorced and his mother came out as a lesbian.
“I was partly raised by two women, and I have two brothers who are gay, so I have always been part of the gay community,” he said. “It's just always been a part of my life.”
“Mac’s sexuality wasn’t obvious to us in the beginning. Slowly but surely we realized we had an interesting opportunity,” McElhenney continued. “Mac was showing a lot of signs of being a closeted homosexual, and it could be interesting to have him come out. That’s something we wanted to address this year. And yes, it was something that was important to me.”
Later, in 2021, his moms were featured in a video for GLAAD for Mother’s Day, where they talked about their 37-year relationship.No family looks exactly the same. So proud to call both of these ladies “Mom”. @mommcelhenney @marytaylor2 https://t.co/WhClX9OXKj
— Rob McElhenney (@RMcElhenney) May 6, 2021
McElhenney shared the video on his Twitter, saying, “No family looks exactly the same. So proud to call both of these ladies ‘Mom.’”
In a statement with the video, McElhenney also talked about how he and his siblings loved being raised by two moms.
“I get asked a lot about what it was like to have two moms,” he said. “The truth is that it was a pretty great gift. By the standards of 1984 South Philadelphia, our upbringing was unconventional, but my brother, sister, and I were able to recognise early on that not every family looked exactly the same or like what we saw on television. Yet we had nothing but love and support and compassion and empathy. And I think that allowed us to flourish.”
More recently, in his docuseries Welcome to Wrexham, which follows the Welsh football club that McElhenney and his friend Ryan Reynolds bought together in 2020, McElhenney says that he can “recognize the amount of courage it took” for his moms to raise him in the time they did.
“I have so much empathy for her in that situation because it was a different time. And anybody who is over the age of 35 who’s watching this can understand,” he said.