Neal McDonough Says Hollywood Shut Him Out Because He Refused to Kiss Co-Stars: “Intimacy Is a Whole Different Thing For Me

Neal McDonough, who you might know from shows like Yellowstone and Suits, has opened up about a difficult time in his acting career. On the podcast Nothing Left Unsaid, he shared that Hollywood turned against him because he had a rule in his contracts not to kiss any female co-stars on screen. This decision made it hard for him to get acting jobs.

“I’d always had in my contracts that I wouldn’t kiss another woman on-screen,” McDonough said. He explained that it wasn’t his wife who had an issue with it, but rather himself. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to put you through it. I know we’re going to start having kids, and I don’t want to put my kids through it.’” He has been married to Ruve McDonough since 2003, and they have three children together.

Because of this no-kissing rule, McDonough said Hollywood stopped hiring him for about two years. “Intimacy is a whole different thing for me. So, when I wouldn’t do it and they couldn’t understand it, Hollywood just completely turned on me and they wouldn’t let me be part of the show anymore,” he said.

That time cost him a lot. “I lost everything you could possibly imagine. Not just houses and material things, but your swagger, your cool, who you are, your identity, everything. My identity was an actor, and a really good one.”

Though McDonough didn’t say exactly when this happened, he’s been in many movies and TV shows over the years, including recent projects like The Last Rodeo, Homestead, Walking Tall, and Yellowstone.

He also talked about how this tough period affected his confidence and life. “I was in a big ugly tail spin for a couple years. And it still took me a couple years, thereafter, to kind of break the habit of ‘Am I really in the show or this is just kind of a part-time thing?’ ‘They kind of letting me back in. I’m not so sure.’ And I drink more. I never drink during the set. […] I didn’t feel like I was doing the right things or something just wasn’t clicking,” McDonough shared.

His wife played a big role in helping him get back on his feet. She encouraged him to “go to church daily,” and after he started doing that, he stopped drinking and began to feel better. McDonough told Closer Weekly that being cast by Graham Yost as a villain in Justified helped him return to acting.

McDonough only broke his no-kissing rule once. For the movie The Last Rodeo, his character had to kiss his recently deceased wife. He convinced Ruve to play that part.

Now, at 59 years old, McDonough says he’s busier than ever. He told podcast hosts Tim and Troy Green, “I, at 59 years old, I’m more busy than I’ve ever been in my whole life because I have this clarity.”

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