‘Bones’: Did Emily Deschanel and Co-star David Boreanaz Ever Date?
Whenever a TV show with an unmarried male and female lead comes out, the central question surrounding the couple becomes “Will they or won’t they?” One of the key examples of this was Moonlighting, with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd. To this day, an urban legend persists that the show died once the two slept together.
Things never rose to quite that level on Bones, the crime procedural that lasted for 12 seasons on Fox, but some people still wonder if stars Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz ever dated. The short answer is no, but he did attend his Bones co-star’s real-life wedding.
Who is Emily Deschanel?
Many people know that Emily Deschanel is the sister of Zooey Deschanel, the actress-singer known for, among other things, (500) Days of Summer, New Girl, and She & Him — the musical duo she fronts with M. Ward. However, their father is famous for his behind the scenes work. Caleb Deschanel is a cinematographer who shot The Black Stallion, The Passion of the Christ, and last year’s CGI version of The Lion King.
Deschanel played the title character of Bones, AKA Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist who teamed up with Boreanaz’s FBI Agent Seeley Booth to solve crimes. On the show, their characters began a romantic relationship in season 6. They later marry and have two children.
But the actors never hooked up in real life. She married David Hornsby in 2010, while he married Jaime Bergman in 2001.
Deschanel told The Hollywood Reporter: “I thought about all of that and I really responded to the script, and then I met David Boreanaz. He already had the part when I auditioned for it. I remember thinking, Oh, this could last us three years. That would be the longest I could ever in a million years imagine that it could ever last. And then it kept going and going and it was a lot of fun, with some great people. I look back with such fondness.”
Who is David Boreanaz?
Boreanaz launched to fame via Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where he played an investigator turned vampire. His character got his own spinoff Angel, but with Buffy lasting seven seasons and Angel five, Bones actually ended up outliving both of them.
Indeed, Boreanaz was so surprised by the show’s longevity, that according to Screen Rant, he tweeted in 2012 that the show would not be back. Deschanel was even less optimistic, having thought that show would end after three seasons. Bones ended up lasting four seasons after Boreanaz’s premature tweet.
When the show finally did end in 2017, Boreanaz said of his co-star: “For me, it’s always been about the camaraderie and the crew and being able to work with [my] beautiful co-star. She’s given me so much love and support that it made it easy from day one.”
What do the ‘Bones’ stars really think of each other?
That tells you what kind of relationship the Bones leads had. They may not have dated or been married to each other in real life, but they had a bond that was more intense than that of many actor co-workers.
After the show ended, Deschanel told The Hollywood Reporter: “We spent more time with each other than we did with our own spouses — with anybody else, really — and we fully acknowledged that we would drive each other crazy. We gave each other permission to walk away at different times, or just say ‘you’re really bothering me right now, or ‘you’re annoying me, I have to get away from you.'” In other words, they weren’t really a married couple, but at times they still operated like one.
Deschanel has been relatively inactive lately, most recently having a recurring role on the TNT series Animal Kingdom. Since 2017, Boreanaz has led the cast and directed episodes of the CBS series SEAL Team. The two reprised their Bones characters on American Dad and Sleepy Hollow.
