Jackson Blue McDermott is the only child of actress Maria Bello and television executive Dan McDermott. He was born in March 2001, turned 25 earlier this year, and lives in New York City. He has given no interviews, holds no public social media accounts, and has made no statement on the record in any form. The reason his name draws consistent public curiosity has nothing to do with anything he has chosen to do publicly. It goes back to a private conversation his mother published in the New York Times.
| Full Name | Jackson Blue McDermott |
| Born | March 2001, at 2:22 AM |
| Age (2026) | 25 |
| Mother | Maria Bello, actress |
| Father | Dan McDermott, Chief Content Officer, AMC Studios |
| University | The New School, New York City |
| Lives In | New York City |
Table of Contents
Jackson Blue McDermott’s Parents: Maria Bello and Dan McDermott
Jackson’s mother, Maria Bello, is one of the more recognisable dramatic actresses of the past three decades. She played Dr. Anna Del Amico in ER, earned Golden Globe nominations for The Cooler (2003) and A History of Violence (2005), spent four seasons as Jacqueline Sloane on NCIS from 2017 to 2021, and won a Critics’ Choice Award for Netflix’s Beef in 2023. She also co-founded WE ADVANCE after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, an organisation focused on women’s healthcare and domestic violence prevention in Haiti. Her 2015 book, Whatever…Love Is Love: Questioning the Labels We Give Ourselves, takes its title from something Jackson said to her when he was twelve years old.
His father, Dan McDermott, stays out of the public eye entirely, which obscures how significant his career has been. He spent years at Fox Broadcasting developing The X-Files, The Simpsons, In Living Color, and Beverly Hills, 90210. He then became DreamWorks’ first-ever President of Television, overseeing Band of Brothers, Freaks and Geeks, and Spin City. He joined AMC Networks in 2020 and now serves as Chief Content Officer and President of AMC Studios, managing The Walking Dead Universe, the Anne Rice Immortal Universe, and AMC’s full portfolio of streaming and cable channels, including AMC+, BBC America, and Shudder. He holds a B.A. from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television and trained as a Screenwriting Fellow at the American Film Institute.
Maria and Dan were together from the late 1990s and separated in 2006, when Jackson was five. They never married. In her own writing, Maria described the arrangement that followed as genuinely cooperative. She even wrote that she still considered Dan a kind of partner in her life because of their shared son, and that the two of them, along with Jackson, regularly spent time together as a family in the years after the split.
The Summer He Was Twelve
In the summer of 2013, Jackson was sick enough to be hospitalised. After he came home to Los Angeles, he sat with his mother and asked her, directly, whether there was something she was not telling him.
Maria had been preparing for this conversation. She had spoken to a therapist about how to approach it and was advised to wait until Jackson brought the subject up himself. He brought it up himself, without prompting.
She told him she had been in a romantic relationship with her best friend, a woman named Clare Munn, who was also someone Jackson already knew and trusted, someone Maria later described in print as being like a godmother to him. He listened. He looked at her for what Maria would later describe as what felt like an eternity. Then he smiled and said:
“Mom, love is love, whatever you are.”
Maria told him she was a little scared. That when she was younger, people had judged same-sex relationships, and some still did. Jackson had already said everything he intended to say.
That November, Maria published those words in the New York Times Modern Love column, in an essay titled Coming Out as a Modern Family. Jackson was twelve. He had no say in the publication.
What Those Six Words Became
The essay spread widely within hours of going live. The Facebook page connected to the column recorded more than 200,000 interactions in the days that followed. TIME Magazine and The Hollywood Reporter covered it the same week. It became one of the most-read pieces the Modern Love column had ever published.
Maria held onto what Jackson had said. It became the title of her 2015 book. It became the label she used for herself in every subsequent interview about her identity. It became a piece of cultural shorthand attached to broader conversations about queer identity, modern family structures, and what it means to love without a fixed label.
Years later, speaking at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Maria told an audience that Jackson was proud he had come up with the phrase.
He was twelve when he said it. He said it to his mother in private. Everything that came from it, the book, the interviews, the cultural moment, the lasting public interest in his name, arrived without his agreement or involvement.
Growing Up in LA, Moving to New York
Jackson graduated from high school in Los Angeles in June 2019. That March, when he turned eighteen, Maria posted on Instagram: “18 years ago today Jackson Blue McDermott was born at 2:22 am. Greatest blessing of my life.”
The following August, she posted about him leaving for New York City to continue his studies. He enrolled at The New School, the Manhattan university known for its programmes in writing, media, design, and the arts. He graduated in 2023. Maria marked the occasion with a post reading: “Love and Positivity… Let the commencing of more adventure begin. Congratulations son!”
In the graduation photographs, the similarity between them was hard to miss. Same eyes, same expression, the same self-possession. Maria has referred to him as her carbon copy more than once.
How Maria Has Talked About Jackson Over the Years
Jackson leaves no public record of himself. Maria’s tributes are the closest thing that exists to one.
| Year | Occasion | Maria’s Words |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 18th Birthday | “Greatest blessing of my life” |
| 2019 | High School Graduation | “Let the commencing of more adventure begin” |
| 2021 | Father’s Day | “Thank the dear lord he is steady and funny and kind and organized” |
| 2023 | College Graduation | “Love and Positivity… Congratulations son!” |
| 2026 | 25th Birthday | “My kind and loyal friend. My protective warrior. My life.” |
The language across those years tells its own story. In 2019 he was a blessing. By 2026 he is a warrior, a friend, a moon and stars. He has grown up entirely through the words his mother chose to share.
Jackson Blue McDermott in 2026
Jackson is 25, living in New York, and absent from public life in every meaningful sense. No confirmed career, no interviews, no accounts. The only photographs of him in circulation were placed there by his mother.
For his 25th birthday in March 2026, Maria posted a photo of them on a balcony. She wore a beige dress and a knitted cardigan. He wore black trousers and a white button-down shirt. Her caption: “My son (SUN). My moon and stars. My favorite person in the world. My kind and loyal friend. My protective warrior. My life. 25 years ago today, we were blessed with your existence. Thank you for choosing me to be your Mama. Happy Birthday, Jackson Blue. May you always keep dancing.”
He did not post anything.
His mother has called him steady, funny, kind, and organised. She has called him a moon and stars. She has called him a protective warrior. In 25 years, he has not described himself to anyone publicly, not once. In a family where radical openness became both a philosophy and a career, that is either temperament or a considered response to having had no privacy at twelve. Possibly both. Either way, it is the most deliberate thing about him.
