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Rob McElhenney is shining a spotlight on his moms in honor of Mother’s Day. The 44-year-old actor teamed up with GLAAD to produce a video highlighting his mothers, Helena McElhenney and Mary Taylor, alongside his business partner, Ryan Reynolds.
“I met Mary approximately 37 years ago,” Helena shares in the clip, which was posted to GLAAD’s social media channels. “I was a school teacher for a few years and then decided to get into nursing and that’s when I met Mary. The minute I met her, she was the person that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
“I would go home and say, ‘I met this woman. I just love her. I can’t help myself. The blue eyes melt my heart,’” Mary recalls. “Then it hit, and love is love.”
Despite their love for each other, Helena says she “was afraid, not only for my children, but for myself.”
“The first several years were really, really tough,” Mary agrees. “But we got through it.”
Now that they’ve made it through that time — they officially tied the knot three years ago — Helena says, “If I could go back, I would tell me to not be afraid.”
“To be strong and know that because you are who you are and you have a loving family that they’ll support you,” she says. “… Who you love and how you love is your business, but sometimes you need a little help.”
To get that help, Mary advises people in a similar situation to not “worry about other people” and instead “rely on the community for support.”
Amid the release of the video, Rob reflected on what it was like growing up with two moms.
“I get asked a lot about what it was like to have two moms. The truth is that it was a pretty great gift,” the 44-year-old “Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star said. “By the standards of 1984 South Philadelphia, our upbringing was unconventional but my brother, sister and I were able to recognize early on that not every family looked exactly the same or like what we saw on television.”
“Yet we had nothing but love and support and compassion and empathy,” he continued. “And I think that that allowed us to flourish.”
Meanwhile, Ryan shared the sweet clip on his Instagram Story. “Happy Mother’s Day,” the actor wrote, before tagging both Rob and GLAAD.
Prior to teaming up for the video, the men became business partners when they bought Wrexham A.F.C, a fifth-tier soccer team in Wales, despite not having ever met in person.
“We’ve never met, which is the weirdest thing, because we Zoom and text every day,” Ryan recently said while interviewing Rob for his Men’s Health cover. “We’re kinda like work spouses — everything we’ve done has happened during the pandemic.”
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