by Bridget Griminger
While Rob McElhenney, best known for creating and starring in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, did not graduate, he briefly attended Temple University (legally) and Fordham University (illegally) between 1995 and 1996. After high school, he took a gap year, staying with various friends at college and going on tours. He noticed that the majority of his friends spent their time drinking and “racking up debt,” and he decided not to enroll, as he felt he was too immature and it would be a waste of time. Instead, he moved to New York from Philadelphia, and camped out on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus.
McElhenney allegedly bought a meal plan from a student who hated the food for around $100 in cash. He even went to the registrar’s office and managed to get a student ID, as they “would just, no questions asked, take the picture-.” He says, “I had this ID that not only got me everywhere on campus, including the dorms… and the security gates but got me a meal plan, so I was, for all intents and purposes, a student at Fordham. And I would go to class sometimes. I would audit classes… I was a non-matriculating student but I would go and I would sit in some of the classes that interested me.” Likely American History classes in Keating or Dealy Halls. He managed to get on-campus housing through a friend from high school who lived in one of the “eight-bedroom dorms” (Walsh Hall) and had an extra bed for about eight months of what would have been his sophomore year.
The “dumb move” that exposed him was auditioning for a school play and getting the lead male role. The student who he beat out for the part, McElhenney suspects, reported him to administration. While he claimed he was “just a friend visiting,” authorities “started to sniff around,” though at that point, it was the end of the school year and he was already moving out. They didn’t charge him with anything or take disciplinary action against anyone; McElhenney says Fordham administration likely wanted to move on quickly because they “take security very seriously up there [because] it’s kind of a rough section of the Bronx, so the fact that a person was able to just [get on campus]… They wanted to just forget about it.” He continued to live in New York and had some small roles before moving to Los Angeles when he was 25.
Two years later, he pitched the idea of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to Glenn Howerton, a Juilliard alum he had met through his agent and writer/producer, Charlie Day, who grew up in Riverdale near Fordham. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the longest-running live-action American sitcom and cable series, which premiered in 2005 (on my birthday). In 2023, a 16th season was released and through an 18th season on FXX. Since then, McElhenney has co-hosted the Always Sunny Podcast with Howerton and Day, with cast members Kaitlin Olsen, McElhenney’s real life spouse, and Danny Devito. McElhenney also created and stars in Apple TV’s Mythic Quest (with Day and Always Sunny producer Megan Ganz), and recently won an Emmy for his docuseries on the Welsh football team Wrexham AFC, which he bought with Ryan Reynolds. He was also slated to direct the upcoming Minecraft movie, but ultimately left the project. Season 17 of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is expected to be released in early 2025.
the paper 