The Real Reason Jonathan Bennett Wasn't In The 'Mean Girls' Reunion Ad

Ariel Messman-Rucker
·2 min read
(L) Jonathan Bennet at the beach and (R) Jonathan Bennet in 'Mean Girls'
(L) Jonathan Bennet at the beach and (R) Jonathan Bennet in 'Mean Girls'
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

In a not so fetch turn of events, the cast of Mean Girls recently reunited for a Black Friday commercial for Walmart, but out gay actor Jonathan Bennett was noticeably absent.

OG Mean Girls stars Lindsay Lohan, Lacey Chabert, and Amanda Seyfried all appeared in the ad, but both Bennett—who played Lohan's character's dreamy high school crush Aaron Samuels—and Rachel McAdams decided against participating.

"I was filming so I couldn't do it, but it was so fun to see everyone reunite," he said in an interview with E! News alongside his husband, Jaymes Vaughan.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jonathan Bennett (@jonathandbennett)

Mean Girls has been living rent-free in our heads for nearly two decades, so we were thrilled to hear about the upcoming Mean Girls musical, but we're still greedy for a sequel to the original.

"Everyone wants to know if we'd do a sequel and I think the mass consensus to my knowledge of our cast is of course we would," Bennett explained.

While Bennett loves the iconic character he played, he's not precious about it. He's even excited for Christopher Briney (The Year I Turned Pretty) to take over as the new Aaron Samuels.

"It's just important that he does his Aaron, because I did my version of Aaron and the role is for him to interpret now," he said. "I'm excited to see what he does with it."

Though there is one line Bennett hopes his Gen-Z replacement will get right, "You can't screw up the word 'Grool,'" he explained. "That's the keyword of the entire character. So make sure you nail the word 'Grool.'"

In a fan-favorite moment from the movie, Lohan's character Cady Heron invented the word when she got so tongue-tied around Aaron Samuels that she accidentally combined the words "cool" and "great."

Since starring in a beloved high school comedy, Bennet has made a name for himself acting in a slew of LGBTQ+ Hallmark movies and co-hosting Kay Jewelers' New Year's Eve event in Times Square for the past seven years.

The new Mean Girls film will hit theaters on January 12, 2024. See the full trailer below.