Neal McDonough has opened up about Hollywood ‘turning on him’ because of refusing to kiss his co-stars on camera.
He talked about it in a recent interview
In a July 30 appearance on the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast, the Suits star told hosts Tim Green and Troy Green about the ordeal.
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“I’d always had in my contracts that I wouldn’t kiss another woman on screen,” he started.
But it wasn’t something his wife requested
The Yellowstone actor explained that it was more his preference than his wife’s. “My wife didn’t have any problem with it. It was me, really, who had a problem with it,” he said.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to put you through it. I know we’re gonna start having kids,’ and I didn’t wanna put my kids through it.”
Intimacy is too personal for him
“Intimacy is a whole different thing for me. When I wouldn’t do it and they couldn’t understand it,” McDonough continued.
“Hollywood just completely turned on me and they wouldn’t let me be part of the show anymore.”
But he didn’t name the show
McDonough, who has been married to South African model Ruvé Robertson since 2003, didn’t name the show he was allegedly fired from.
But in an interview with Closer Weekly back in 2019, he said his rule against sex on-screen cost him his job on the ABC drama series Scoundrels in 2010.
He claimed he couldn’t get a job afterwards
“It was a horrible situation for me,” the actor told the magazine at the time.
“After that, I couldn’t get a job because everybody thought I was this religious zealot. I am very religious. I put God and family first, and me second. That’s what I live by. It was hard for a few years.”
He was unemployed for two years after that
The 59-year-old Desperate Housewives actor told the podcast hosts that he couldn’t get a job for two years after being fired.
“I couldn’t get a job and I lost everything you could possibly imagine,” he said.
McDonough felt the situation even cost him himself
“Not just houses, material things, but your swagger, your cool, who you are, your identity, everything,” McDonough shared.
“My identity was an actor, and a really good one, and once you don’t have that identity, you’re kind of in a tailspin. And I was in a big, ugly tailspin for a couple of years.”
But his career was thankfully revived
In his 2019 Closer Weekly interview, McDonough added that one of the producers on Band of Brothers helped revive his career when he called him for a role.
“Graham Yost called me and said, ‘Hey, I want you to be the bad guy on Justified,’” he recalled. “I knew that was my shot back at the title.”
