Gillian Anderson explains why she kissed David Duchovny before boyfriend at Emmys

Anderson shocked fans when she turned to kiss’ X-Files’ co-star at awards ceremony

Gillian Anderson has finally addressed her infamous Emmys kiss with herX-Files co-star David Duchovny.

In 1997, as Anderson took home the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series at the Emmys for her role in the sci-fi series, she surprised fans when she turned to give Duchovny a celebratory kiss, rather than her then-boyfriend, Rodney Rowland.

In a video shared online, Anderson finally cleared the air after fans spent two decades asking her about the backstory.

Anderson said she had been “told you guys want some information about when I kissed David first”.

“The fact is that David and I were actually living together and Rodney was my beard,” Anderson said with straight face, before clarifying that she was joking. “That’s just a joke. Was that really mean?”

After getting the joke out of the way, the Sex Education star said the moment was more instinctive, likely because she and Duchovny were “practically married” while working on X-Files together.

“I don’t know why I kissed him first,” she said. “I guess because he was on the show with me and we were practically married because we spent more time with each other than we did with our loved ones.”

She added: “And we were there to celebrate the series. So yeah, maybe that’s what it was.”

Duchovny and Anderson in ‘X-Files’ (FOX)

The kiss has become a big moment in pop-culture history largely because of the will-they, won’t-they tension surrounding their characters: Anderson’s Dana Sully and Duchovny’s Fox Mulder.

The kiss took place as Anderson was sat in the theatre’s auditorium, with Duchovny sitting directly behind her and her then-boyfriend Rowland to her left. When it was announced she had won the award, she leaned backwards to kiss Duchovny on the mouth, before turning to kiss Rowland.

Throughout the show’s nine-year run, fans were left questioning whether the characters would have ever gotten together – and the Emmys kiss only amplified those fan theories.

Meanwhile, Anderson said that her former boyfriend didn’t mind the kiss.

Anderson and her then-boyfriend Rodney Rowland at the Emmy Awards in 1997 (Getty Images)

“Rodney was a great guy,” she said. “I don’t think it bothered him. He understood.”

She concluded: “It was complex. That’s all I got.”

Anderson played FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the hit series, which ran for nine seasons between 1993 and 2001. It was revived for two more seasons in 2016.

The creator of X-Files said earlier this year that studio executives initially didn’t want Gillian Anderson for the lead role in the series.

Chris Carter, the creator of the hit sci-fi series, recalled Fox executives pushing back against his casting choice when he pitched American actor Anderson, 55, for the part in the early 1990s.

In an April interview with Inverse, Carter recalled studio executives asking him “Where’s the sex appeal?” about Anderson.

Her appearance seemed to be a point of contention between the executives and Carter.

“Even though Gillian’s beautiful, she wasn’t their idea of sexy,” he explained. “First, because they didn’t understand what I was trying to do with the show. And she was an unknown, so that never helps.”

The show’s success ignited Anderson’s acting career, which has seen her land roles in Netflix’s The Crown, Sex Education, and the BBC drama series The Fall.