Yellowstone star Neal McDonough claims Hollywood blacklisted him for refusing to kiss another woman on screen

Neal McDonough has built a reputation as Hollywood’s go‑to tough guy, whether as Damien Darhk on Legends of Tomorrow, Malcolm Beck on Yellowstone, or Lt. Buck Compton in Band of Brothers. But he also boasts something less cinematic: a strict personal code about love scenes.

Yes, he refuses to kiss another woman on screen. And according to McDonough, that very boundary once cost him his career – it got him blacklisted. The Yellowstone star insists that refusing to kiss a woman on screen was the catalyst for being shut out of Hollywood. The consequences were severe: no jobs, losing his home, even his confidence got affected. Yet he stuck to his values, and today, he’s back on his own terms.

Neal McDonough opens up about how turning down intimate scenes almost cost him everything

Neal McDonough has long stood by one rule in his career— he won’t kiss any woman on screen who isn’t his wife. Rooted in his religious values and personal convictions, it's a boundary he's never crossed. And as he reveals in a new interview, that very decision led to a professional fallout that nearly destroyed him.

In the TMZ snippet from the Nothing Left Unsaid podcast, McDonough explains where it all began:

“I’d always had in my contracts that I wouldn’t kiss another woman on screen, and my wife didn’t have any problem with it. It was me, really, who had a problem… 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.”

The consequences were swift and severe.

“And for two years, I couldn’t get a job and I lost everything you can possibly imagine,” he continued. “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, and once you don’t have that identity, you’re kind of lost in a tailspin.”

McDonough has addressed these struggles before as well. In E! Online (2025), he reiterated that Hollywood “completely turned on me” over his no-kissing clause, saying it cost him two years of work and left him scrambling to rebuild his life and career.

Going further back, in a 2019 interview with Closer Weekly, he recalled being fired from the 2010 ABC series Scoundrels after refusing to perform a kissing scene — an incident he described as the beginning of his isolation from mainstream Hollywood roles.

Despite the fallout, McDonough has never considered his rule unreasonable. He’s said he was always open to projects where writers worked around his boundaries. One example he’s often mentioned is his role on Desperate Housewives, where showrunner Marc Cherry accommodated his values. McDonough reportedly told Cherry upfront that he wouldn’t kiss anyone. Cherry’s response? (as per The Sun):

“All right, I’m just going to have to write better.”

In 2025, McDonough made headlines again with The Last Rodeo, a Western drama that finally features a kiss on screen—only this time, it’s with his real-life wife, Ruve McDonough, who plays his character’s spouse.

Speaking to Fox News, he said:

“I’ve never been in the position where I get to kiss the girl in the end because, as everyone knows, I won’t kiss another woman on screen.” He added, with a laugh, “Honey, you have to be in the film because I have to kiss the girl in the end.”

Through it all, McDonough has remained unwavering. Whether blacklisted or not, he’s continued to find creative ways to tell stories without compromising on what matters to him—his faith, his marriage, and his identity.