Is ‘Shameless’ and ‘Star Wars Jedi’ star Cameron Monaghan gay?

Certain celebrities just cannot get away from gay rumors. They tend to follow some people around their entire careers, especially when it comes to actors who play gay characters, such as Cameron Monaghan.

It’s not like playing a character on TV says anything about who you are as a person or how you identify but for some reason, folks tend to latch onto certain roles to speculate. See Taylor Zakhar Perez for example, whose sexual orientation immediately became a topic of online conversation when Red, White & Royal Blue came out. In Monaghan’s case, gay rumors started floating around 2011, when the first season of Shameless aired.

In the show, the actor portrays Ian Gallagher, a character involved in Shameless‘ most beloved relationship, with Mickey Milkovich (Noel Fisher). The on-screen romance quickly led fans to question Monaghan’s sexuality, and even a decade after the show’s premiere, the gay rumors still persist. This isn’t surprising, in all honesty, considering how difficult it is to keep rumors away, no matter how many times they’re shut down.

Thankfully for those wondering, Cameron Monaghan has already answered the question of whether or not he is gay. How could he not, after being asked about it repeatedly for years on end?

What is Cameron Monaghan’s sexuality?

Although Cameron Monaghan has never labeled his sexual orientation, we know that he doesn’t identify as gay. There are reports that Monaghan has already stated this on X (formerly Twitter), and while that tweet can no longer be found, it wasn’t the only time that the actor addressed the rumors about him.

In an interview with Vanity Fair in 2011, Monaghan affirmed that he was very happy playing the role of Ian in Shameless, despite not being gay himself. He further claimed that he’s always happy to show support for the LGBTQ+ community, and glad that many teens would be able to relate to his character.

So, we know that Monaghan isn’t gay, but could he be bisexual? Or is he straight? Well, he has only been romantically linked to women in the past, such as Peyton R. List and Ruby Modine, but that can’t be used as an indicative of what his sexuality is.

All of this is to say that unless the actor chooses to state his sexual orientation one day, there’s no way to know what it is. Perhaps it’s best to leave this speculation behind altogether, then. We’ve already seen how harmful that can be to some celebrities.