One Of It's Always Sunny's Stars Showed Up With A Black Eye On The First Day Of Season 16
One cast member on the hit FX series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" has a long history of getting injured both on-set and off, but in season 16, they really upped the ante by showing up on the first day of filming with a black eye. Fans of the series could probably guess that it was Kaitlin Olson, who plays the foul-mouthed, allegedly bird-like Deandra "Sweet Dee" Reynolds. Sweet Dee and Olson aren't too much alike beyond appearances, except for the fact that both seem to be ridiculously clumsy and accident-prone, which is how Olson ended up with a shiner on the first day of filming. The incident didn't go unnoticed, however, and Olson's co-star and husband Rob McElhenney shared a photo of the big bruise on his Twitter account, joking about how "of course" she had to injure herself.
The black eye is one the latest in a long line of Olson's injuries, some of which happened on set doing some of Dee's ridiculous stunts, and it's sure to not be the last. After all, this is the woman who watched a stuntwoman do a take throwing herself into a car and then demanded that she get to do it herself, denting the car and requiring chiropractic treatment for her neck! That's dedication, but maybe Olson should be a little more careful. The gang may be close to indestructible, but she's only human!
Art imitates life
Olson has a long, storied history of intense injuries, starting with a fractured skull from a bike accident involving a vehicle when she was only 12. She also broke her back shortly before filming season 4, at a 4th of July party when a neighbor lifted her and dropped her on the sidewalk. She's also injured herself while filming both her Fox series "The Mick" and "It's Always Sunny," breaking a rib on "The Mick" while throwing a rock and hitting a car and slicing open her shin on "Sunny." That last injury really freaked out fellow cast member Glenn Howerton, as Olson told Yahoo News:
"Like, I went to the emergency room this year. I ripped my leg completely wide open on a steel grate that we were running on. It was a mess. Poor Glenn was like, 'I'm sorry, I have to walk away. I can't see this.' It was a lot of blood. But I've had two babies, so I was extremely calm. I was like, 'Alright, well, this is a real problem, but let's get the ambulance here, and I'll apply pressure, and we'll figure this out. Don't worry, everyone. It's just a skin thing.' You could see my bone, though ... my shin bone."
Sweet Dee's clumsiness has become a running gag on the series, and it seems like that's taken directly from Olson's own penchant for peril. When you've survived giving birth, broken bones, and a slew of stitches, a little black eye probably doesn't seem like a big deal.
A quick fix courtesy of concealer
Over on Instagram, McElhenney posted the photo of Olson's eye as well, adding, "Thank god for @theadorable1 and her makeup team for making it [go] away ...." Sweet Dee herself had to use makeup to hide some nasty bruises during the gang's Ireland arc in season 15, so this time, life imitated art instead of the other way around!
Olson is deeply committed to delivering top-notch physical comedy, and while that unfortunately sometimes leads to injury, she also gets injured in her daily life. McElhenney has even joked about how he had her go to the doctor to test her bone density to make sure she didn't have her character's bird-like bones. (She does not and actually has stronger bones than the average person!) Hopefully Olson can stay safe between now and season 17, and she can show off Sweet Dee's comical clumsiness without any harm to herself.
All 16 seasons of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" are available to stream on Hulu and FXNow.