A Brief History of Kate McKinnon and Gillian Anderson’s Mutual Crush

This week, out queer actress Gillian Anderson appeared on The Late Late Show and told an intimate story that involves Kate McKinnon, a bed, a bath, and beyond. The X-Files actress spoke to James Corden about a video from 2008 in which Kate McKinnon professed her love for Anderson. The video in question is a drop in the bucket of publicly expressed love between the two actresses. But in order to fully understand the gravity and importance of this Late Late Show epic, first, we must start at the beginning.

As baby-gays, we can typically look back on our past, before we even knew what sexuality was, and point to at least one moment where we were expressing early queerness. For me, it was an embarrassing photo in which I dressed up as Sporty Spice for Halloween. For Kate McKinnon, it was a similar photograph from her childhood where she dressed up as Dana Scully, Gillian Anderson’s iconic X-Files character. So, we know Kate was a Gillian stan at a very young age.

Kate McKinnon, we have something in common & it’s not slimy green things. #Ghostbusters #thefutureisfemale pic.twitter.com/5m00Xk5CET

— Gillian Anderson (@GillianA) July 18, 2016

Years later, McKinnon guest starred on Brunch With Bridget, a web series hosted by comedian Bridget McManus. She cozied up, tucked herself under the covers, and spoke for the first time (publicly) on her obsession with Gillian Anderson. She demands that Gillian should cut her long blonde hair, because Kate liked it better when it was short and red, like on The X-Files. She then leans into the camera and whispers sweetand admittedly creepynothings into the lens, including “You are so perfect,” and “You are so beautiful.”

In 2016, around the time of the McKinnon-starred Ghostbusters reboot, word got out to that this childhood photograph of McKinnon existed. Anderson got a hold of it and tweeted the photo of Kate in full Scully cosplay, saying, “We have something in common and it’s not slimy green things.”

Now that you’re up to speed, that brings us to this week on The Late Late Show, in which Gillian talked about her new movie, The Spy Who Dumped Me, where she stars alongside McKinnon.

First, Gillian recounted her Twitter exchange with McKinnon over the baby Scully photo. Then, she told us that the night before her first shoot day with McKinnon, she realized she didn’t know much about her. So, while soaking in a steamy bath, she does what we’ve all done at some point: She googled the actress and watched a “Kate McKinnon Best Moments” compilation video while bathing. One of these “best moments” happened to be the clip from Brunch With Bridget.

Anderson was totally shaken and embarrassedso much so that she never told McKinnon she had seen the video.But luckily, all is forgiven. We were finally gifted with the tweet we’ve always hoped and prayed for.

Anderson tweeted the clip from her Late Late Show interview and said that Kate is “the coolest, loveliest chick ever,” anddrumroll please That “the crush is reciprocated.”

The end of this story is we got to work together & she’s the coolest, loveliest chick ever. The crush is reciprocated! @latelateshow #KateMcKinnon pic.twitter.com/9TLAU5GJfR

— Gillian Anderson (@GillianA) January 10, 2018

As of yet, there’s no trailer for The Spy Who Dumped Me, but according to IMDB, the movie is set to drop this summer. Thank you, lesbian gods!