Actor Neal McDonough is shedding light on how he lost his house and almost lost his career.
The “Band of Brothers” and “Yellowstone” alumnus explained the combination of factors that almost put him in an insurmountable hole, which stemmed from substance abuse and his career choices.
‘I didn’t think I was worth anything.’
Lip service
During a recent interview with Fox News Digital, McDonough said his frame of mind used to always revolve around the bottle.
“What time is the bar open? That was generally my thought process back then,” he told the outlet.
McDonough continued, “I was always a drinker. I’m Irish, I’m from Boston, it’s what we do. It wasn’t ever a problem. But it became a bad problem.”
That was just one issue, though. The other was an apparent Hollywood blackballing because of McDonough’s firm position regarding being intimate with other women on-screen.
“It was, you know, fired from a show because I wouldn’t kiss a woman,” McDonough revealed. “No one would hire me because they thought I was this religious nut bag, which is that I love my wife so much. And no one can understand it, no one could understand it.”
This seemingly started a downward spiral for McDonough, who drank more and more after being blacklisted for refusing to kiss his co-star, the outlet reported.
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Friend indeed
“I lost the house, lost the cars, lost everything,” the 60-year-old recalled.
Despite successes on shows like “Desperate Housewives,” McDonough still couldn’t get work until he was given a role in the TV series “Justified.”
However, by then the actor’s confidence was shot. He explained to Fox News Digital that he didn’t think he was “worth anything.”
“I failed my family. I failed [my wife] Ruve, my five kids. … I lost our house. I lost all the beautiful things that were the shiny widgets that I had accumulated, were all taken away from me. And that crucifixion caused me so much inner pain because I made it all about me. How could I let the team down?” he asked.
McDonough remembered running into actor and friend Luke Perry at a movie premiere; the two had been in a 1997 miniseries called “Invasion” and were still friends.
“He saw I was a mess,” McDonough said. He opened up to Perry about his life and the loss of his home, to which Perry responded by offering his vacant home to the McDonough family, telling his friend it was empty and close by.
“Stay there for as long as you want,” Perry told him.
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Bottle stopper
This helped get the “Project Blue Book” star back on his feet, but he still credited his wife with the motivation he needed to quit drinking.
Ruve, his better half for 25 years, can be seen alongside McDonough at countless premieres throughout his career.
“She grabbed me and says, ‘It’s us or the bottle. You choose.'” McDonough said he “never looked back” from that moment.
The actor then attributed having his teammate as just a “cold, hard fact that God gave me an amazing, incredible, most amazing woman that I’ve ever met.”
McDonough concluded by describing Ruve as his “good luck charm” who got him through hell.
The duo are now producing movies together.
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