Liam McPoyle’s IRL Girlfriend Defends Their 20-Year Age Gap: It’s ‘Certainly Not Grooming’
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Jimmi Simpson may not share Liam McPolye’s penchant for sleeping with his siblings, but the 48-year-old actor has still managed to ruffle feathers with his personal life, as his 27-year-old girlfriend, filmmaker Kyra Gardner, has had to come to his defense amid accusations of him having groomed her.
Gardner, the daughter of Hollywood special effects legend Tony Gardner, found her May-December romance in the hot seat last week after a TikTok video commemorating their 2022 meeting sparked backlash on social media. “She doesn’t know it yet, but she’ll meet the love of her life that night, and is actually looking at a photo of him on the paper she’s holding,” Gardner captioned a clip of her attending the Studio 666 premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
@_kyramyra_
Clearly intended as a romantic installment of the viral “She Doesn’t Know It Yet” TikTok trend — “This trend is so sweet and I realized I actually had footage of this day,” The Dollhouse documentarian wrote alongside her post — some fans weren’t feeling the love, taking to the comments to express concerns over the pair’s more than 20-year age gap.
Don't Miss
“The love of your life is 2 decades older than you?” asked TikTok user TT, while Bkalski took aim at Simpson’s previous marriages to Melanie Lynskey and Sophia Del Pizzo.
“Jimmi Simpson has met the love of his life 3 times,” they joked.
Gardner wasn’t having any of this pushback, though. She quickly began deleting “any false comments” on the viral clip before pinning the rumor that Simpson had been a longtime pal of her father’s on an unnamed stalker.
“Jimmi and I started dating when I was 26. Our stalker is weirdly claiming I’ve known him since I was 16 and he was friends with my dad. FALSE,” she explained, clarifying that she first met Simpson during a job interview at age 22 before “re-meeting” him at the Studio 666 premiere. “My dad didn’t even know who he was and I had to introduce THEM while at work.”
The star concluded with a message for her naysayers: “It’s an age gap but certainly not grooming.”
“Every1 wanting to push that false narrative is gross & I don’t know why you WANT it to be a grooming story,” Gardner continued. “Please read more than the 2 minutes of REDDIT gossip before making assumptions about people.”
There is, however, definitely another issue at hand: To paraphrase badchili_, a thousand years of a pure McPoyle bloodline are about to go down the drain.
