Madison Bailey's Throwback Photo With Rudy Pankow Amid Feud Rumors
Amid continued fan speculation that Outer Banks stars Rudy Pankow and Madison Bailey had a falling out, the actress posted a throwback photo that included her costar. Madison took to Instagram on Thursday, November 14, to reminisce about filming season 1 of the hit Netflix show.
“P4L,” Madison, 25, captioned the photo, referencing the cast’s iconic “Pogue for life” catchphrase. The image featured her hanging out with Chase Stokes, Jonathan Daviss, and Rudy, 26, behind-the-scenes of the show.
“My eyeballs are wet,” Chase, 32, commented. Meanwhile, fans flooded the comments section with reactions to the throwback pic. “My heart,” one person wrote, along with three red heart emojis. “i’m sobbing. you were BABIES,” someone else added, while another fan said, “I MISS YOU GUYS FOREVER.”
During recent seasons of Outer Banks, many fans have been upset with the lack of social media interaction between Madison and Rudy. After the two posted photos and videos together consistently in season 1, fans noticed less content in the time since, leading to speculation that they were no longer friendly offcamera. Needless to say, there was widespread excitement to see Madison include Rudy in her new post.
The pair’s characters, Kiara and JJ, became a couple during season 3 after passionate fans begged for them to be together. However, in real life, they both have girlfriends: Madison has been dating Mariah Linney since 2020 and Rudy went public with Elaine Siemek that same year. Fans have placed the blame on Mariah and Elaine for Rudy and Madison’s rumored falling out, citing a June 2023 cast dinner that was followed by Mariah and Rudy unfollowing each other on Instagram and Madison and Elaine also unfollowing each other.
The blame game dated back to 2021, though, and Rudy and Madison both had to step in to defend their significant others from the hate they were getting online at the time. Life & Style has reached out to reps for Rudy and Madison and has not heard back as of publication.
Fans also theorized that the actors used stunt doubles to film intimate scenes during season 4 of Outer Banks. One clip that went viral featured the onscreen couple cuddling by a fire but never showed their faces in the same frame. Rather, the camera continued cutting away between each of them.
The season ended with JJ dying after saving Kiara’s life. Although showrunners insisted that this storyline had been in the works for a while, fans have accused Rudy of asking to be written out of the show so he doesn’t have to work with Madison anymore.
While he has not posted on social media since his final episodes aired, he told Tudum, “I want to leave the cast and crew with the biggest thank you. It’s been such a pleasure to come to work. This is by far the biggest thing I’ve ever done in [my] experience, and to have this as my start is a start of a lifetime. I’m going to miss it. Thank you for so many fun memories I’ll have the rest of my life.”
Meanwhile, when the cast filmed a video to say goodbye to Rudy, Madison got emotional and even choked back tears. “We all read the character on the page and we know what you brought to it and you turned it out and really made something of it and paid respect to the depth of the character while bringing a lightheartedness that the show desperately needed,” she said.
Outer Banks has been renewed for a fifth and final season.