Julian McMahon. Our Demon Boyfriend, Gone Way Too Soon

Julian McMahon has passed away from cancer at the age of 56, and honestly? It’s hard to imagine a world where he’s not still slinking into frame with that villainous smirk, that bone structure that launched a thousand gay awakenings, and that voice—half velvet, half warning.

He was that guy. The dangerous one. The hot one. The one you knew would ruin your life, and maybe already had. And for so many of us raised on WB drama and early-2000s cable chaos, he was a very particular kind of icon: dark, damaged, magnetic. Queer-coded, even when he wasn’t meant to be. And absolutely unforgettable.

To most of the world, Julian McMahon might be best remembered for his roles on Nip/Tuck and Charmed. But to a very specific slice of millennials, particularly the queer ones, he was something more: formative.

As Cole Turner on Charmed, he walked the line between brooding love interest and literal demon with unnerving ease. He didn’t just seduce Phoebe Halliwell — he seduced the audience. You weren’t sure whether to root for him, hate him, save him, or be consumed by him. And that was the point.

He made evil look romantic. He made redemption look tragic. He made ambiguity sexy.

And it wasn’t just the character. It was Julian. He gave Cole this undercurrent of pain that didn’t feel written, it felt lived-in. He wasn’t just playing a demon. He was playing heartbreak, rage, longing. It was queer, whether it meant to be or not. Because that push and pull? That hunger to be good, to be loved, to be seen, even when the world tells you you’re unworthy? That was us.

Then came Nip/Tuck, where he truly went full chaos. As Christian Troy, McMahon played a plastic surgeon with the moral compass of a noir anti-hero and the sexual energy of a walking red flag. And we ate it up.

The show was messy. Wild. Often offensive. But for me—a teenager in the closet, quietly drowning in subtext—it also felt weirdly safe. It wasn’t overtly queer. It wasn’t trying to teach me anything. But I was obsessed with Christian Troy. His swagger, his self-destruction, the way he used sex like a shield and a weapon. There was no label, just heat. That ambiguity felt like something I could slip into without fear. I could watch him and feel all the things I wasn't ready to name.

McMahon never flinched. He leaned into Christian’s brokenness, his narcissism, his trauma. He made ugly things fascinating. He made sex feel dangerous, vulnerable, performative. His character slept with whoever—and at no point did it ever feel like a gimmick. It felt like a man whose identity was as slippery and desperate as the masks he gave his patients.

You didn’t watch Nip/Tuck because it made you feel good. You watched because Julian McMahon made you feel something. That is rare. That is power.

We never talk enough about the queer impact of actors like Julian McMahon. Not out-and-proud icons, but the ones who played roles that burrowed into our psyches and refused to leave. The morally grey boyfriends. The seductive monsters. The ones who made you wonder if desire could survive damnation.

For every queer millennial who couldn’t quite name what they were feeling in 2001, Julian McMahon was the vibe. He was longing, danger, and glam wrapped in a man who wore suits like armor and said "I love you" like a threat.

He wasn’t perfect. None of his characters were. But they mattered. Because they told us: you can be flawed and still magnetic. You can be loved while falling apart. You can want, and want badly, and still not be punished for it. He gave us the kind of queerness you had to read between the lines to survive.

Julian McMahon’s death hits harder than expected. Because he didn’t just play characters. He played obsessions. He haunted storylines. He made mess sexy. And for those of us who found ourselves in the shadows, in the subtext, he was a lighthouse.

Rest in power to the man who made demons dreamy, surgeons complex, and queerness something that smouldered before it could be spoken.

You were our villain, our boyfriend, our undoing. And we’ll miss you.