‘Always Sunny’ Started Kaitlin Olson’s ‘Jungle Cat’ Pursuit of Rob McElhenney
Dee Reynolds gets endlessly harangued by Mac and his pals in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but off-camera, Kaitlin Olson and Rob McElhenney are a real-life celebrity couple. Olson and McElhenney only knew each other once they started working together on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Find out how their relationship blossomed on the set of the FX series.
Rob McElhenney and his wife Kaitlin Olson have two sons
The Always Sunny stars tied the knot in September 2008 after meeting three years earlier working on the FX series. Today, they have two sons: Axel Lee and Leo Grey. Axel was born in 2010 and Leo was born in 2012.
Kaitlin Olson explains her attraction to husband Rob McElhenney
Olson was recently a guest on the Always Sunny Podcast. When asked the fan-submitted question, “Why Rob?” she had this to say.
“I didn’t really think twice about him in the audition, [I] just thought everybody was funny and nice,” she explained. “Then we started working and he just was so good at his job and had never done this job before and I had been on shows and recognized how hard it was to run a show …”
Olson described McElhenney as “very in charge but also very kind and very funny.” She continued: “[He] knew what he wanted and [was] very level-headed and a very good boss and I just was very attracted to that.”
Rob McElhenney says his wife ‘pursued him like a jungle cat’
During the podcast, Always Sunny co-star Charlie Day flipped the question and asked McElhenney, “Why Kaitlin?”
“I don’t think anybody would need to hear me explain why, based on what they already know,” Rob said. “I really had to work at ya,” Olson interjected. “She pursued me like a jungle cat,” McElhenney elaborated.
“I was confused as to why I wasn’t getting the response I was expecting,” Olson said of her initial pursuit.
Rob McElhenney denied Katlin Olson at first
“I was a professional, I recognized the power dynamic, I said, ‘This is inappropriate,'” McElhenney explained. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is wildly inappropriate.'”
The Wrexham AFC co-chairman was worried about becoming another “Hollywood creeper” and wanted to avoid getting added to that narrative. But all of that denial only made Olson “burn brighter.”
McElhenney recalled a time when he “very clearly said both verbally and … non-verbally … ” that he wasn’t going to explore a physical relationship with Olson. She interrupted: “We definitely made out after a Fox party one time and there were no ‘Nos’ being thrown around.”
That party wasn’t the first time Olson attempted to advance her relationship with McElhenney. “You advanced on me a number of times at Charlie’s house [and I said no],” McElhenney remembered.
Charlie Day’s wedding changed everything for Kaitlin and Rob
In March 2006, Day married another Always Sunny co-star Mary Elizabeth Ellis. McElhenney and Olson were both in attendance and that’s the day they say everything changed. Until that point, Olson said she knew she was falling in love with McElhenney, but she wanted to keep things professional.
However, when events came up where alcohol was present, all bets were off. Olson recalled drinking, “act[ing] like a fool,” and “beat[ing] herself up for a long time.”
“Then I stopped; I got the message,” she concluded. “Then Charlie’s wedding happened.” McElhenney was also “respectful of the situation for so long” but eventually couldn’t ignore a woman he felt was “this beautiful, this talented, and this kind …”
