Mean Girls' Jonathan Bennett Rejected From Wedding Venue For Being Gay
Jonathan Bennett shares the “gut punch” of being rejected from a wedding venue because he’s marrying a man
There’s so much more to love about Jonathan Bennett than just his absolutely iconic role as Aaron Samuels in Mean Girls. The actor is also engaged to his adorable fiancé, James Vaughan, and the couple is planning their dream wedding, which they talked about in a new interview with The Knot magazine. Sadly, though, their dream wedding won’t take place at their dream venue, because in the year 2021, they were turned away because they’re “two men.”
Bennett recounted the painful experience in his interview.
“This has been the most important factor in deciding what our wedding looks like. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, you don’t just need to feel safe—you need to feel celebrated. For years, we planned to get married at Palace Resorts in Mexico,” he said. “When we got engaged, the owner said he couldn’t marry us because we’re two men and it goes against his morals. That was a sucker punch to the gut.”
Um, yeah, I can’t even imagine how that must have felt. It’s shocking that that kind of bigotry is still alive and well today, until you remember that it’s actually been less than a decade since marriage equality even became law in the U.S.
Bennett and Vaughan have actually handled the situation with an amazing amount of grace, saying that moment made them “[decide] in that moment that our wedding was bigger than us.”
“It’s our wedding, but it isn’t just about us. It’s about the LGBTQ+ community,” Bennett continued. “We’re really making a point to make this wedding very loud on purpose.”
He later added, “We want to make sure that there’s never a moment during the engagement or wedding planning journey that LGBTQ+ people aren’t excited. We want to make sure that they are celebrated every moment and don’t feel a sense of otherness. The otherness needs to be removed from gay weddings.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself, but just in case you need more Jonathan Bennett realness, he also had this to say: “I want to make sure that through this whole process of our love and wedding, and building our family, that we are trailblazing for the LGBTQ+ community. I want everyone to realize that they are never too much, and they’re always enough. That’s my mission in life. You’re never too much. And you’re always enough. You just being you is enough.”
An icon? Absolutely.
