Killed-Off ‘Rescue Me’ Star Calls Denis Leary A ‘Bully’

One day after being killed off of the hit F/X show “Rescue Me,” Jack McGee claims series executive producer and star Denis Leary is an insecure bully, according to TelevisionWithoutPity.com.

In an exclusive interview with the Web site, McGee (who played Chief Jerry Reilly) said he felt mistreated by Leary during his time on the show.

“My own true feeling is, I think the wrong character killed himself,” McGee said. “I want to walk away from this as clean as possible, but I’m not gonna sugarcoat it.”

In this week’s episode, McGee’s character puts a gun in his mouth, the screen goes black and you hear the gunshot.

McGee claims while Leary cultivates a public image as a bold, blunt, hands-on actor-writer-producer who loves collaboration, he is actually an insecure, controlling person who hogs the spotlight.

“The promos are all him — you’d think there was nobody else on the show,” McGee said in the interview.

McGee also took exception to the fact that Leary never had a face-to-face talk with him about the decision to kill off his character.

“That would take a real man to do that,” McGee said. “Denis doesn’t know how to do that. His persona would make you think he’s straight up, he’s honest and he’s forthright. But I never got an indication of that… The truth is, if he knocked on my door right now, I’d be able to look him right in the eye. I don’t know if he could do that.”

Instead, McGee said Leary opted to have fellow executive producers Peter Tolan and Jim Serpico deliver the news.

“He’s a bully, is what he is,” McGee added. “Bullies most of the time don’t have the guts to do things themselves.”

Meanwhile, Tolan, who also serves as series writer and co-producer, had a different version of events.

“Jack is being disingenuous if he says nobody explained to him what was going on. The difference he’s drawing is, apparently he wanted to hear [the bad news] from Denis, when the fact remains that Denis is wearing about eight different hats on the show and doesn’t have anything to do with the hiring and firing of actors,” Tolan noted.

For the full interview, visit TelevisionWithoutPity.com.