Yes, The Winchesters' John and Mary Actors Are Dating IRL

The Winchesters is canceled, but that didn’t stop costars Meg Donnelly and Drake Rodger from taking their romance off-screen.

Donnelly, who played Mary Campbell in The CW’s Supernatural prequel series The Winchesters, opened up about her relationship with Rodger, who starred alongside her as John Winchester. While appearing on “The Zach Sang Show” on Friday, February 23, Donnelly, 23, confirmed that she and Rodger, 24, were dating.

“Yeah, yes,” she said. “We’re not trying to hide it at all. It’s just that, I feel like on my last couple relationships it was very public, so now I’m kind of trying to keep it — not even private, because I’ll talk about it as much as possible because I love him so much. Just on social media in general, I like having that privacy, because putting it all out there it kind of becomes public too.”

Donnelly added that, in her line of work, having a public romance adds an unnecessary amount of pressure on the relationship, which she and Rodger have discussed.

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“We’ve had conversations about it, but it’s nothing too — like if we feel like posting about each other we can,” she explained. “It’s not off limits, it’s not like we’re hiding each other or anything, but just not every day publicly anymore, because I used to do that and I like the way things are now.”

Donnelly added that she enjoys going to events such as “red carpets” with Rodger, saying “It’s very easy, he’s so great at keeping calm energy and I always get so nervous.” She concluded, “He’s great, he’s really cool. I feel like the past year or so, he has just been incredible even for music and acting and stuff, he just has such great advice and I feel like my communication has gotten a lot better because of him, and I’m grateful for that.”

Supernatural ran for 15 seasons on The CW between 2005-2020 and starred Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki as monster-hunting brothers Sam and Dean Winchester. The Winchesters focused on the love story between Sam and Dean’s parents in the 1970s. The prequel was canceled by The CW in May 2023, cutting John and Mary’s love story short with one season.

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Ackles, an executive producer and narrator for The Winchesters, confirmed in June 2023 that The Winchesters would not return for a second season, despite fan-led social media campaigns to save the show, such as #SaveTheWinchesters and #RenewTheWinchesters.

“To all of you who watched, followed, and supported this story, THANK YOU. And to all those who brought this show to life … I couldn’t be more proud of what we all did together,” Ackles tweeted at the time. “But as they say … timing is everything.” He cited a “massive network shift coupled with an industry strike” as reasons for the show’s cancellation. (Members of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA unions went on strike in 2023 after disagreements with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over contracts. They reached a resolution the following November.)

The Winchesters cast addressed the show’s cancellation at a Supernatural convention in Chicago in June 2023.

“Unfortunately, we will not be doing season 2 at this time. Yeah, they exhausted the options,” Rodger told the audience at the time. “The entire campaign #SaveTheWinchesters, #RenewTheWinchesters … the love was felt. It’s not that we didn’t know what it meant to people, but to see it on that scale all at once was incredible and really, really touched my heart and I know the entire cast’s hearts.”