Mrs Brown’s Boys star Brendan O’Carroll has said he would "never say never" on Rory Cowan returning to the show.
Fan favourite Rory quit the series in 2017 due to his mother Esther's ill health although he also said he felt the show was getting stale and he was bored, reports the Irish Mirror.
Rory previously said: “We were in Australia and my mother was dying. Now, she was dying for four years, God love her.
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“I was told she had days to live and I couldn’t come home and I thought, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’
“Also, I got very bored with it as we were doing the same venues in the same order every other year.”
But Brendan would be happy to welcome Rory back to the show if he decided he wanted to return.
He said: “His mother’s passing really took it out of him.
“She had Alzheimer’s as well as cancer. He was trying to deal and cope with that. She’s passed away and he’s now recovering so see what happens. Never say never.”
The 66-year-old, who writes the scripts and plays potty-mouthed matriarch Agnes Brown in the award-winning sitcom, also revealed he misses Gary Hollywood following his bombshell exit in 2020.
Brendan said: “He was a great actor and we miss him.
“He used to call me father. He was part of the family and we haven’t spoken since and haven’t heard a word from him since.”
The former High Road star joined the Mrs Brown’s cast in 2004 as Dino Doyle in the stage show and then in the TV series, which began in 2011.
But Hollywood quit two years ago, claiming he was paid less than other cast members, along with fellow actor Damien McKiernan, who replaced Cowan as Rory Brown.
The Scot launched a legal action in 2021 against O’Carroll, the BBC and TV production company Hungry Bear Media Limited, citing discrimination and unfair dismissal.
The actor claimed he was paid 25% less than his colleagues for his role in last year’s six-part chat show spin-off, All Round To Mrs Brown’s.
And he says he was dropped from one of the two Christmas specials just days before filming started.
However, he dramatically withdrew all claims in June last year during a preliminary hearing.
And while Brendan would welcome Rory Cowan back with open arms, he doesn't see a way back for Hollywood.
He said: “I think that is it. It was the most bizarre time. I don’t know where it came from. It came out of the blue.
“I got a call from the office to say Gary has been on to the office and wants his flight home to Spain changed to tomorrow.
“I was like ‘But we haven’t been to Glasgow [where the chat show was being filmed] yet? We are meant to be isolating. We haven’t started yet’.
“He said if he’s not going to be in both episodes he’s not going to do it. And then he was gone.”
Hollywood then went public with claims about pay, which Brendan refuted, saying: “He came back in the press saying he didn’t get paid as much as everyone else. He did.
“In fact he got more than some because he’d been with us longer.
“He was saying stuff to us about why he was leaving that didn’t exist.”
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