Chicago Fire star Taylor Kinney appeared on the red carpet at a military charity event held in Austin, Texas. It’s the first time Kinney has been on a red carpet since his leave of absence from the NBC drama.
Try Paramount+ FREE for a week. Subscribe here to watch your favorite shows.
Kinney, 41, on Saturday, visited the 2023 MotoGP VIP Experience & Charity Giving event at the Circuit of The Americas racing track outside of Austin. The event was for MotoUp, a nonprofit supporting military communities through motorsports.
“Thanks for stopping by @taylorkinney111 to see what we’re doing to help out our #veterans,” the organization’s Instagram account wrote on Saturday alongside a photo of Kinney posing on the red carpet with his girlfriend Ashley Cruger, PEOPLE reports.
‘Chicago Fire’ Source Said Back In January That Taylor Kinney Left ‘To Deal With A Personal Matter’
Back in January, a source close to the production of Chicago Fire confirmed to PEOPLE that the actor would be taking a leave of absence from the series “to deal with a personal matter.” Kinney has played Lt. Kelly Severide since the show’s first episode in 2012.
His leave of absence was explained in this season’s episode titled Damage Control. We learn that Kinney’s character was said to be attending “the best arson investigation training program in the world.” However, it was hinted that joining the program doesn’t necessarily mean that Severide’s leaving the firehouse.
Daniel Kyri Says That Taylor Kinney Is Kind Of A Jokester On The Show’s Set
Daniel Kyri recalls some “funny moments” with Kinney on the show. Apparently, Kinney is a jokester with his co-stars. “Taylor is actually a bit of a jokester,” Kyri admitted in an interview with Looper. “I don’t know if a lot of people know that about him because on the outside everybody’s like, ‘Oh, sizzle, sizzle.’ He’s the smolder guy or whatever. [Laughs.] I’m over here like, ‘Eh, no, not a thing.’ We have a lot of fun. He can be kind of goofy sometimes, which I actually really enjoy.”
Many people might have forgotten that Kinney and Chicago Fire co-star David Eigenberg once starred in a Lifetime movie together. The film was the 2011 feature Five, an anthology film about breast cancer. Both Kinney and Eigenberg appear in a segment of the movie titled Cheyenne. It follows the story of an exotic dancer who cannot come to grips with getting a vasectomy.
A while back, Kinney opened up about his childhood crush in the world of show business. Who was it? None other than Katey Sagal of Married…With Children fame. Sagal played the downtrodden wife Peggy Bundy opposite Ed O’Neill’s Al Bundy on there.
